Faithful on Fridays Blog

Providence: Part Three

The book of Ecclesiastes teaches a crucial truth to live by: Life always changes. The debate in Solomon’s mind, soul vs. spirit, certainly proves that. Your soul is ruled by emotions, passions, and desires; Paul used the Greek word psukee, from where we get the word psyche and psycho, our personality is driven by our will and emotions and can lead us into deep trouble. The psyche looks at the lower story, as Solomon shows us, and is ruled by that perspective. That’s why he swung from depression to exultation; everything is hopeless or everything is awesome.

Our spirit, pneuma, is that part of us that’s born from God and sees everything from the upper story. It’s having God’s perspective, even when things look bleak and remembering He’s in control. A pneumatic, being driven by the spirit, is constantly reminded of God’s providence and looks beyond the outward circumstances of life knowing they’ll eventually change. 

Remember this, beloved of God, our free will can not override God’s sovereignty.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose … If God is for us, who can be against us? Rom. 8:28, 31b

It’s true; sometimes we’re delivered from trouble … and sometimes we’re not.

Sometimes we’re rejoicing in life … and sometimes we’re not.

Life can be hard or life can be easy, we’re on a mountaintop or we’re in a valley.

Times shift and change.

Solomon teaches us that these times are temporary, however, we can make ourselves see good in all of them.

Ecc. 3:1-8 is a familiar poem, seven couplets with similar meaning, written to assure us of these truths; for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. Life isn’t random, it’s predestined and cyclical. Consider what season you’re in:

• Are you birthing or planting something in your life or is something dying and ready to be harvested? (Vs. 2)
• Is it time for your spiritual enemies to be killed, strongholds pulled down, or time to accept healing and building up? (Vs. 3)
• God may have you in a season of weeping and mourning or a time of laughing and dancing. Embrace it; emotions are a gift from God. (Vs. 4)
• Is this the season of casting off stones of rejection or hurt, not embracing them or a time of gathering and embracing, both actions of love? (Vs. 5)
• Are you positioned in life to be searching and keeping what you find or a time to quit searching and cast away those desires? (Vs. 6)
• God’s upper story may have you rip away a passion and keep silent about it or He may have you sew and repair a lost passion by speaking up. (Vs. 7)
• Lastly, we experience love and wholeness (peace) but sometimes there’s hate and war against our spiritual enemies (Vs. 8); a pneumatic knows the difference.

He has made everything beautiful … in its time. (Vs. 11a)