The Mystery of God's Timing

March 15, 2026|The Mystery of God's Timing|Ecclesiastes 3

JD Cutler

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This morning we are continuing our look at the wisdom literature book entitled Ecclesiastes.

A book that explores life as it is, not as we wish it was. Probably the single most relatable book of the Old Testament for people who have experienced the often frustrating reality of living. It meets both believer and non-believer alike in one of the most basic questions of life, ‘what is the point of all of this?’

If you have never read this book before, you may be surprised how the author begins to examine that question.

So far we looked at chapter 1 under the heading ‘The Futility of Life’ where we saw the preacher observes that life under the sun, or life evaluated from a purely human, earthly perspective is ultimately vanity, or frustratingly enigmatic, or mysterious and hard to figure out because the world has been subjected to futility through sin. Human effort, wisdom, and achievement cannot resolve the fundamental brokenness of creation.

We then moved to chapter 2 under the heading ‘The Pursuit of Pleasure’ where we saw the preacher’s experience in solving the futility of life through various efforts, ending with him declaring that it was all ultimately a futile effort. There is a very brief glimpse at the end of chapter 2 of hope when the preacher says, Ecclesiastes 2:24–26 “24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. True enjoyment of life’s ordinary gifts comes from the hand of God, not from possessions or pleasure themselves.

But then he says, This also is vanity and a striving after wind.” While there is some earthly enjoyment to be had from what we gain by our toil, and that enjoyment is a gift from God, ultimately that cannot be the whole point. If this life is it and my greatest enjoyment will be limited by what I can produce, what I can build or experience under the sun, then we really aren’t much better off than if there wasn’t a point at all.

At this point in Ecclesiastes we aren’t much further in exploring the purpose of life as we begin chapter 3.

The last time we looked at the book of Ecclesiastes I asked you to imagine Ecclesiastes as a conversation with an older gentleman and asking him how to find purpose, satisfaction and joy in this life. Then we imagined, after him telling you that the secret of life is that all of life is a frustratingly mysterious existence, he began walking us through his house showing us all of the things he has tried. We followed him into the room of chapter 2 that was full of accomplishments, lavishly supplied with delicacies, and adorned with paintings that captured extravagant parties and celebrations. Ultimately you realize that this room doesn’t hold the answers to life, it just confirms that everything we normally think of that will satisfy us or bring us lasting pleasure is actually vanity or striving after the wind. That apart from God, nothing in that room can satisfy and even with God, nothing in it is meant to be ultimately satisfying.

The question raised by those two chapters is this, ‘If life is futile and human effort cannot fix it, is there anything that explains both the structure and mystery of life?’ or to ask it another way, ‘If human effort cannot bring order or meaning to life, then why does life unfold the way it does?’

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 begins to answer that question by pointing us beyond life under the sun to the one who is sovereign over time and eternity. I want to look at Ecclesiastes chapter 3 this morning under the heading ‘The Mystery of God’s Timing’.

The reality is that life feels frustratingly mysterious precisely because we live inside of and experience time while God exists apart from and yet governs time. We experience what may feel like random, separated, even disjoined moments of life, but we need to understand that God sees the whole story.

It is this realization that serves as the hinge point in the book of Ecclesiastes.

In the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes, the preacher is searching for the meaning of life under the sun. In chapter three, he discovers why the search feels so frustrating: we experience the moments of life, but only God sees the whole story. And once he realizes that, the rest of the book becomes a guide for how to live wisely in a world we cannot fully understand.

We experience what may feel like random, separated, even disjoined moments of life, but we need to understand that God sees the whole story.

This morning I want to walk us through that realization and its implications as we explore this chapter looking at three realities concerning God and his providential timing over life. The first is…

I. GOD APPOINTS THE SEASONS OF LIFE

Let’s read the first eight verses together this morning. I have no doubt that even if you have never read Ecclesiastes then you have heard these words many times before.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 ESV

1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

This is a famous biblical poem. You can probably remember hearing it read at a funeral, or a wedding or a graduation ceremony. Those big moments in life whether happy or sad. It begins ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.’ At first, we may even be comforted by those words. Maybe we are reassured that life makes sense. Life unfolds in seasons, and even if we are in a difficult season, there will be better seasons. Life isn’t random after all.

But coming from what we know of the author, do we really think he is trying to reassure and comfort us?

What about the context of the poem, what comes before and what comes after?

Is this what the preacher wants us to take away from this piece of literary writing?

Look briefly at verse 9, Ecclesiastes 3:9 “9 What gain has the worker from his toil?” The author returns to his previous question. (Ecclesiastes 1:3 “3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” , Ecclesiastes 2:11 “11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” , Ecclesiastes 2:22 “22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?”)

In reality, the preacher is not resolving the problem of the frustrating mystery of life, he is pressing deeper, he is intensifying it. Yes, life unfolds in seasons, there is some semblance of order to it, but we are not in control.

Think about how passive you and I are in bringing about these seasons.

A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to uproot, a time to weep, a time to laugh.

I don’t know about you but I didn’t choose when to be born, I don’t control the seasons or control when it is time to plant or when it is time to harvest, I don’t appoint seasons of loss or seasons of happiness. We don’t choose when these moments happen. Many of these seasons are not only not under our control, but are affected by other people beyond our control.

Is it really all that comforting that there is a time for every matter under heaven?

I think the preacher is getting at the heart of the problem. Part of why life is so frustrating is that it doesn’t unfold according to our plans or timelines. We constantly try and make life happen on our schedule, but the reality is that it unfolds on God’s schedule.

This poem is really a culmination of chapters 1 and 2.

(ESV) 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

(ESV) 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

(ESV) 18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

This is not comfort, this is reality. He is describing moments that happen in life whether we plan them or not.

For a moment, let’s return to our metaphor of exploring the preachers’ house.

As we leave the room where we explored the pursuit of pleasure he leads us into a long hallway with pictures hung on both sides of the wall. You realize that each picture captures a moment of human life. As you walk down the hallway you begin to realize something—these pictures tell the entire story of life under the sun. On one side is a picture of a newborn child, eyes clear, rosy cheeks, clutching a blanket with it’s name on it and you realize this child has it’s entire life before it. On the opposite wall is a picture of a gravestone with that same name etched on it and you realize no matte how full or long that child’s life, all of us end up in the ground.

The next pair show a newly tilled and planted field, practically bursting with potential and life, on the opposite wall, a field that has been harvest and cleared and lays empty. On and on it goes, one side showing great laughter and dancing, the other side weeping and mourning. Countries prospering in peace and nations ravaged by war.

This hallways shows the beginning and the end of life and everything in between and you realize, we are not in charge of these moments, we do not ordain these seasons, which brings us to the question.

Who does?

The Bible answers that question telling us that God has set in place the seasons, that he directs our steps, that he knows our days, that he knew all of our days before there was even one lived. God has sovereignly appointed, and providentially guided the past, present, and future.

Life unfolds in seasons that we cannot control. Ecclesiastes confirms that life often feels chaotic and frustrating to us, but it also declares that life is not random. Every experience listed- birth, death, war, peace, mourning, dancing- has an appointed time. Furthermore from our own experiences, we know that we are not the ones who do the appointing. That is not to say that there is no comfort to be found in these words, it really comes down to how you view God.

Do you trust that he is good and loving and that he works all things together? Then knowing that he has appointed the moments and seasons in your life is a comfort. Is God an impersonal, distant, unknowable force, then it is probably frustrating that you are not in control.

The more we fight against the season of life God has appointed, the more frustrated we are going to become. The more we embrace whatever season of life God has appointed, the more we will experience the good gifts within every appointed season.

And while that is good advice for every one of us here today in how to live day to day, it still doesn’t get to the main tension of what is the point of all of this, which brings us to our next division.

II. GOD CONCEALS THE FULL MEANING OF LIFE

Let’s pick up in verse 9.

Ecclesiastes 3:9–15 ESV

9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. 14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

The author returns to the same question from chapter 1. What gain has the worker from his toil? But he presses deeper. He adds two statements that begin to flesh out life under the sun.

The first, he says, is God has made everything beautiful in its time. The Hebrew word has the idea of beautiful but also appropriate or fitting. Everything in that list is beautiful if viewed from God’s perspective and in God’s time.

Let me give you an example. A while back, our family went to a state park to camp. One of these selling points of this particular location is that it sits in the intersection of three ecoregions: Cross Timbers, Blackland Prairie, and Grand Prairie. As a result, it has land featuring the ecosystems of all three regions, including wooded areas, wetlands, and prairies. One area that we hiked in advertised prairie land and we were excited to take the hike to see it. Can you imagine our surprise when we turned a corner expecting to see a beautiful prairie fully of wildlife and natural beauty, only to find that this particular prairie was completely burned?

As we hiked around the trail that ran on the edges of the prairie, we found a sign that explained that they do this from time to time. They have these controlled burns in order to keep everything healthy and thriving. These fires stimulate native plant growth, increase biodiversity, and reduce the fuel loads that cause dangerous wildfires. In reality without them the prairies would become overgrown with shrubs and trees and would essentially erase the prairies. At first we were disappointed, but walking the perimeter we saw new life already springing up. In God’s timing, the burn prepared the ground for flourishing. Life under God’s hand often works this way — what seems harsh now may be preparing something good for later. We got to see other beautiful prairies but recognizing the beauty of both gets us closer to understanding that everything is beautiful in its time. Without the appropriate or fitting time of burning you would not get the appropriate time of flourishing.

Maybe you have seen the beauty even in death when a loved one has had a long battle with a painful disease and passes peacefully in their sleep.

Maybe you have seen the beauty even in war when a nation of country is freed from an oppressive government or power. Ecclesiastes tells us that all the seasons of life are beautiful or fitting in their time.

His second observation is that God has put eternity into man’s heart.

That is to say, we instinctually sense that life should make sense. We look down the hallway of life with all of its ups and downs and we just know, this can’t be it. Life has to be more than a series of snapshots that ultimately end in death. We long for purpose and sense in it all, don’t we?

Yet, He says, yet even in placing eternity in our hearts God has done so that we cannot find out what He has done from the beginning to the end. I understand it this way, God has put eternity in our hearts, but not in our heads. We know there is something more, but we do not have the ability to truly comprehend eternity. We long for meaning and purpose and yet we cannot see the whole picture. From our perspective we just cannot wrap our minds around the tragedies in life, the difficulties, we struggle to find beauty, much less purpose and a plan at work.

The tension the author is painting is built on the truths contained within these words. God governs time, the result? We understand that life has order. God places eternity in our hearts, the result? We long for meaning, we long for more. God doesn’t let us understand eternity fully, the result? Life feels mysterious and sometimes frustrating.

This really gets to the heart of why Ecclesiastes feels the way it does, the author is exploring this tension throughout most of its pages. After saying that we cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end, the author again reiterates that there is nothing better for men than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil-this is God’s gift to man.

To that he adds, restating a previous point, that whatever God does endures forever, nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. Why?

Why does God put eternity in our hearts, give us work to do that cannot alter his work, and then encourage us to find joy in the labor?

The preacher says, so that we might fear before him. In the Hebrew, the idea is God has established it this way so that men might revere, honor, and respect Him. The recognition that we don’t understand it all, the recognition that our work is given to us for our enjoyment, the recognition that God’s works are perfect, complete, and unchangeable, and that there is beauty in all of His work, ought to lead us to a holy reverence before Him, which hints at the final conclusion of the book that says,

English Standard Version Chapter 12

13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

The question is how should we interact with the world around us, how should we think about our days in light of the two realities we have looked at? God has appointed the seasons of life and God has concealed the full meaning of life? Ecclesiastes answers that question by calling us again to consider what God desires of us, which brings us to our last division.

III. GOD GRANTS THE ENJOYMENT OF LIFE

Let’s pick up at verse 16.

Ecclesiastes 3:16–22 ESV

16 Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. 17 I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. 18 I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. 19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? 22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?

Lest we are tempted to think that because God ordains the seasons we should expect everything to be good, the preacher brings us back to the darker realities of life. He says I have seen injustice, oppression, and death in places where we would expect justice and righteousness. Most of us who have lived long enough can affirm that we have seen the same in our lives.

If that wasn’t enough, he says, how much better off are we than animals. I mean, we all die and go into the ground. We all return to dust, echoing God’s judgment on sin in the garden when God said to Adam, (ESV) By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Who can tell us whether man goes upward (the idea being towards heaven or afterlife) and beast goes down into the earth (ceases to exist)?

What good is this life if at the end, we are no better off than the beasts of the field? The best he says we can do is to rejoice in our work, for that is our portion and no one will be able to bring us to see what even comes from it after we die.

Pretty inspiring stuff, isn’t it.

Remember the author uses this vantage point of ‘under the sun’ from time to time. We have no reason to believe that he did not believe in an afterlife, but rather from a strict human observation lens, it’s a legitimate question.

From a humanistic perspective, he’s not far off. If all there is in this life is all there is, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point in the various seasons of life. We just have to hope that God gives us more good days than bad. You see enjoying your work, rejoicing in your lot, those are graces and gifts from God, no doubt, this is a recurring theme within Ecclesiastes, but they aren’t the answer to the problem of vanity or the frustratingly mysterious aspect of life. I heard it said this way, these are islands of grace within a fallen world.

Are they good? Yes.

Do they come from God? Yes

Are they the final answer to the mystery of life? No

Are they the ultimate purpose in life? No

Even in a world where we find injustice, wickedness, and death, God has given good gifts to man, work, food, relationships. Gifts to be received with gratitude, not because they make life finally make sense, but because the giver is good even when the world is confusing. We may not understand life any better through these good gifts, but they are good gifts nonetheless. To be received with gratitude.

In verses 17, there in the middle, the preacher acknowledges that even in the difficult portions of life, even when we see injustice and wickedness, there is one who stands above it all, one who will judge what is done, whether it is righteous of wicked. One day, divine judgment will restore moral order, what has been wrong will be made right.

Here is the piece that calls us to look beyond our days under the sun and realize that we will have to give an account to the one who made us, the same one who appointed the seasons of our lives. The Bible says elsewhere that we will all have to give an account for our days. Not in how we ordered them, but in how we responded to the days God ordained for us. Did we enjoy our days have gifts from God? Did we use our opportunities for good and for righteousness? Did we live our lives in fear and reverence before God?

God in his divine grace grants men and women the ability to enjoy life even in the midst of a fallen, sin cursed world.

And yet, we stand in the hallway of life that begins with birth and ends with death and even if we find beauty in each season, even if we receive life as a gift, looking at the place where our last picture will one day stand, there is a sense that this simply cannot be it.

This is the frustrating reality the preacher keeps coming back to. the wise die, the foolish die, the rich die, the poor die Even in chapter 3, after reflecting on God’s sovereignty over time, death still remains the last picture on the wall.

Ecclesiastes walks us down the hallway of human life. The first picture we see is a newborn child. The last picture we see is a gravestone.

The preacher admits that no matter how much wisdom we gain or how much pleasure we experience, we cannot remove that last picture from the wall.

What the preacher could not yet see clearly was how God would ultimately answer that longing, that one day the one who hung the pictures on the wall would step into the hallway himself. It began with his birth but it did not end with his death. Three days later, he arose and instead of a picture of a gravestone, there is an empty tomb.

The author understood that God has placed eternity in the human heart, but could not see in his limited human understanding that there was coming a day that would explain why that longing exists.

Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the longing Ecclesiastes describes finally has an answer. We can finally know both the beginning and the end, not from human wisdom but from divine revelation.

So where does that leave us?

Ecclesiastes reminds us that life unfolds in seasons we do not control, within a story we cannot fully see, under the rule of a God whose purposes we cannot overturn. And yet that same God has not left us without hope. He has given us daily gifts—work, food, laughter, relationships—not as the ultimate meaning of life, but as reminders of His kindness while we walk through the mystery.

More importantly, He has stepped into the story Himself. The preacher of Ecclesiastes looked down the hallway of life and saw birth at the beginning and death at the end. From his vantage point under the sun, death appeared to be the final picture on the wall.

But the gospel tells us that death is not the last picture anymore. Because when Jesus Christ rose from the grave, He changed the ending of the story.

The seasons of life still come—there is still a time to weep and a time to mourn—but because of Christ there is also coming a time when mourning will end and every tear will be wiped away. There is still a time to die, but for those who belong to Christ, death is no longer the end of the story.

It is a doorway into the eternal life that God placed in our hearts that we long for.

Which means that while we may not understand all that God is doing in our days, we can trust the One who holds our days.

There is a song we sing pretty regularly that says, Who holds our days within His hand? What comes, apart from His command. One of my mentors use to say it this way, in our lives, when we cannot trace the hand of God, we can trust the heart of God.

We can also receive our lives as gifts from His hand, knowing tat whatever season he has brought us to he can carry us through.

Daily, we can work faithfully, rejoice in His blessings, and walk humbly before Him.

And we can do so knowing that the God who appoints the seasons of life has also secured eternity for His people through the resurrection of His Son.

So today, whatever season you find yourself in—whether it is a season of joy or sorrow, planting or uprooting, laughter or mourning—the call of Ecclesiastes is the same:

Fear God.

Receive His gifts.

Trust His timing.

And place your hope in the One who conquered the grave.

Because the mystery of life ultimately finds its answer not in human wisdom, but in the risen Christ. In Christ death is defeated, judgment is secured, and eternal life is given. The longing for eternity described in Ecclesiastes 3 finally finds its answer in Christ.

Let us pray.