God Holds All Things In His Hands

Commentary

Even if we don’t fully understand it, we can see that our lives shift between ever-changing seasons. As Charles Spurgeon put it: “Ours is a checkered life. We are not long for any one state, and we quickly change from one condition to another—which is sometimes better, but sometimes worse”.

The author of Ecclesiastes (Solomon), noted that every occasion or season has its counterpart, the good and the bad. Experience shows us just how quickly our lives can shift from one season to another, it can be mere seconds that the shift takes place, maybe we don’t even know it yet.

How we love when life shifts into a good season, yet it’s inescapable that we will deal with seasons of grief, mourning, loss, intense labor, and so on. For in this fallen world, only trouble awaits us, yet it’s because of the goodness of our God that we can have seasons of joy amid the suffering.

Commentary

Solomon, looking at life from a human perspective, asks what do we gain from our labor? He asked this before in chapters 1 and 2, previously coming to the conclusion that whatever a person earns in life is their reward, yet there is futility in it all, meaning it’s pointless, because you’re going to die and lose all you gained anyway.

This is a hopeless perspective, yet it is the way of this world: you must hustle and bustle while you can, so that you are in a good position later on. We’ve built an entire life plan upon this way of thinking. We’ve trained ourselves to focus on the future so much, we spend our lives chasing after things so that we can perhaps get ahead of the coming season and have some control over life.

There is some Biblical wisdom in this and we should prepare for the future as necessary. But if Jesus is not your focus and the one Who guides you, life becomes a monotonous flow of change, where eventually you can become traumatized by the roaring and crashing of the waves of life, as you fail to take enough control over it all.

Self-reliance will never match the wonderful and freeing submission of giving it all over to Jesus.

Commentary

Solomon comes to understand that it’s God who holds all things in His hands. That these seasons of life are not just random events, but the Creator of all things has placed us in the times and places He wants each of us to be.

Every person has an eternal perspective; many don’t understand why, but they still exhibit it in their desires to obtain or build for the long haul. We often say “this is our forever home” or “we’ll be together forever”. The reality is, our lifespan is but a mere speck when compared to eternity. For the follower of Jesus, we know that there is a true forever, not in this world as we know it now, but in a renewed creation that is to come.

In these seasons of life, the Lord is working, equipping you and encouraging you. Ordering your steps to follow His perfect path for your life. He doesn’t usually tell you beforehand what you will face, and as one man put it: “you are better off not knowing anyway”.

When you build, Jesus is with you; when you tear down, Jesus is with you. When you laugh with joy, Jesus is with you; when you weep with sorrow, Jesus is with you. And we can rejoice in knowing this.

Commentary

All that is good is from God. Without Him, there would be no good seasons of life — no true enjoyment of anything. Therefore, we should always thank Him for what He blesses us with.

You can take on trials and tribulations of life knowing that the Lord is equipping you to make it through and blesses you with wonderful things that you can enjoy each and every day. Even the smallest of things, like food, water, the joy of accomplishment, are all things to be thankful to Jesus for.

This is a gift of God, that as we work through life, He blesses us with the rewards of our labor. He lets us enjoy things in this life, to lift our spirits, and gives us a taste of what is to come for the believer in Jesus.

Commentary

God’s Word teaches that there is an eternity for all people, one with Him in eternal joy and one apart from Him in eternal misery. So the seasons of life are arranged so that you and I notice Him, to bring you to a place of being in awe of Him. So that in your most difficult of times you may seek Him for that peace which surpasses all understanding, and in the good times you may praise Him even more and give Him thanks for all that He has done. That each one of us would know our God and Savior, Jesus, personally.

It’s in that right relationship with Jesus that we see the eternal perspective. That indeed all things work for the good of those who love Him and are called by God. Knowing all things, past, present, and future, God works it all out so that justice is truly brought in time as He holds all things in His hands.

We can praise our God every day knowing that as life shifts from one season to another, He is always there and nothing is random, but architected by Him for the very purpose of bringing us closer to Him. And for us who have opened the door to Jesus, that we would realize full closeness with our Savior in eternity, in the renewal of all things. When He will wipe away every tear from our eyes and death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more.