Yesterday at Saar Fellowship we walked through Ecclesiastes 3 and saw what it says, what it means, and what we do with it. The full message is below, but these are the closing words:
…rather than trying to manipulate and manage the future, rather than trying to control the times and seasons of our lives, we ought to be looking to God to guide us through them. The same God who has revealed Himself most fully to us in His Word and the Word become flesh, in the person of Jesus.
For you and for me, it can be so hard not knowing what comes next, can’t it? It can be so difficult being unable to plan and know what season we’re in, what season is next, when it’s coming and where we’re going. If you’re anything like me, you like a plan and not being able to plan has been so hard!
A good friend told me about this poem earlier this week when I wanted some advice and counsel about future plans, the upcoming season of our lives, and it comes from about 100 years ago. In his Christmas broadcast in 1939, King George VI closed with this, a quote from a poem written in 1908 and privately published in 1912 by Minnie Louise Haskins. It reached people as World War 2 had just begun, and at a time when people had no idea how the coming days, weeks, months, and years would look…just let that sink in…
The poem is called ‘God knows’, and this is how the King counseled his people to approach the unknown times and seasons to come:
We cannot tell what it will bring.
If it brings peace, how
thankful we shall all be.
If it brings us continued struggle
we shall remain
undaunted.
In the meantime I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in
the lines which, in my closing words, I would like to say to you:
‘I said to the
man who stood at the Gate of the Year,
“Give me a light that I may tread
safely into the unknown.”
And he replied,
“Go out into the darkness, and put
your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light, and
safer than a known way.”‘
May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.
James Travis 