Daily Devotionals

'Every Day Light' with Selwyn Hughes

Devotional: September 24th

For Reading and Meditation:
     Ecclesiastes 3:6b-8

We look now at the last of the list of Solomon's fourteen contrasts. (10) A time to keep and a time to throw (or give) away. Think at this moment of all the stuff you have that you will never use. Some things you will need to keep, of course, but some things ought to be given away. (11) A time to tear and a time to mend. Some things must never be given up - truth, for example. However, we ought not to be afraid of trying out new ways of doing things. It's not a mark of spirituality to be a "stick in the mud." (12) A time to be silent and a time to speak. It's not often someone confesses, "I feel sorry for the things I did not say," but many admit: "I wish I knew how to keep my mouth shut." The sooner we learn when to talk and when to listen the better it will be for us - and for others! (13) A time to love and a time to hate. Love that does not have another person's interests at heart is not love, but mere sentimentality. To love means you must also be willing to hate. Not people, but the thing that may be hindering them from fulfilling their spiritual potential. (14) A time for war and a time for peace. Wars start, it is said, "when someone has something somebody else wants." As I write, there are over sixty wars going on somewhere in the world. Solomon's words, therefore, rise to almost cosmic proportions: "there must be a time also for peace."

My Father and my God, this focus on the events that take place in time drives home to me my need to have one foot also in eternity. I am grateful that although a creature of time, because I am in You I am bound for eternity. Amen.