“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—a time to give birth and a time to die…” (Ecclesiastes 3: 2a NASB)
I have postponed writing this meditation, but in view of the fact that I have heard people take the great platform of national news and explain their reason for not getting their COVID vaccine or not wearing masks, I have to share some things with you. Their answer explaining why they don’t they adhere to the recommended safety precautions is often, “When it’s my time, it’s my time.” That is their thesis. Let me present to you an antithesis to an awful thesis. As a matter of fact, it is truth to counter that which is false. For most of you I’m not educating you by giving you any new information. I’m merely equipping you from the word of God.
You see, when you read the portion of the verse above, don’t stop there. Keep reading the verse in context of the chapter and the framework of all Scriptures. If you meditate on what you find, and ask for help from the Helper, honestly, you will see that this often-heard verse speaks to the cycle of life. It is not suggesting that there is an appointed time on the Divine’s calendar for every individual to die and when it happens it is all on Him. It does point to the fact that we all experienced birth at some point in time and, at another point in time in the future, we, like every other human will experience death on the other end of the life-death spectrum. Thank God that we who know Jesus as our Savior can look to everlasting life, home with the Lord when our weary days are over on earth.
Now while I agree that the Lord, One who judges all things right, knows when it is time that He must intercede in the cycle of life for an individual who is a barrier to His program, I acknowledge that He does not always exercise that right or execute His power in this regard. Not every evil or bad person is taken away because of God’s doing. Neither is every righteous person taken away because of God’s doing. I would also agree with those who purport that our gracious and merciful God knows just how much one can bear and that persons can be called home to the place where there is no more pain no more agony, and no more misery.
Yet to use the thesis of “If it’s my time, it’s my time,” as if God has a schedule for everyone’s departure is just not right. Even when you read further in Ecclesiastes (7:17), you will see the following advice, “Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time?” “Your time” is again, just at the end of your spectrum. People are dying because of believing a false narrative, this thesis about one’s time to die. I would tell you right now, if you embrace it, don’t expand it to the point that it affects my time. Get the vaccine and mask up as required. It is not up to those who just spout out their thesis to get in my sandbox of life. Are we not to show love for one another? Are we not supposed to care for the well-being of others? And listen, we have only one God, so nobody should assume the power of leading others to death by influencing others to avoid the vaccinations or ignore wearing masks as recommended. I’m not being political, just pedagogical. Nobody has the right to influence my time coming to end or yours or anyone’s time happening when it does not have to. Keep reading.
My antithesis is an effort to give you true instruction. True instruction will lead you to life. Proverbs 13:14 says, “The instruction of the wise is like a life-giving fountain; those who accept it avoid the snares of death.” And listen further as I am led to expand how yet another vital area. I apparently need to go beyond the pandemic and address another awful thesis that “Guns solve things.” Guns on the streets don’t solve anything. They kill and they destroy families and communities. They show how easy it is to identify with the devil, taking on his strategy, identified by Jesus in John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…” They should be identifying with the Christ. Jesus completed that same sentence in John 10:10 as follows, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Even in general, the antithesis to the worst of thesis, that people don’t need Jesus, is simply, we need Jesus…every hour!
Young people, every day, at increasing numbers are expediting their “time” and other “time” for dying, by their own actions and reactions, called retaliation. Know that our own bad choices, at any age, can minimize our years, and not just as it relates to gun violence. This is what should be happening, explained in two verses: (1) Deuteronomy 6:1-2 reads as follows, “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.” (2) Ephesians 6:1 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother ; which is the first commandment with promise;) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.”
In this short time during the middle of the week, I hope that I have equipped you or at least caused you to look at your personal thesis in regard to the days of our lives. What I have presented you with is not exhaustive, but let me add a little more Scripture for you to read in our closing verses. Do me a favor and just think on these things. Be blessed!
“Look at what I’ve done for you today: I’ve placed in front of you, life and good, death and evil. And I command you today: Love God, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess. But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, you will most certainly die. You won’t last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you, Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Deuteronomy 30:15-20 MSG)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King