“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 ESV)
There’s something about the first days of a new year that invites us to pause. We look back on what was and we look ahead to what might be. We set goals, we make plans, we start fresh. In many ways, the turning of the calendar feels like a clean slate. But if we’re honest, a new year can also feel heavy. Some of you step into January carrying grief. Some carry anxiety. Some feel weary from a hard season that hasn’t lifted. Others feel hopeful, excited, even joyful. And many of us feel a mix of all the above.
That’s why Ecclesiastes 3 is such a fitting passage for the start of the year. It meets us where we are—not in a naïve optimism, but in sober realism. And then it lifts our eyes to something higher: the sovereign God who holds every season of our lives.
Ecclesiastes 3 begins with a poem many people will recognize. Even if you’re not familiar with the Bible, you might at least remember the lyrics loosely based on this passage from the popular song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by The Byrds in the 1960’s:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” (Eccl. 3:1)
King Solomon goes on to list fourteen pairs: birth and death, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, war and peace, etc. He’s using “poetic opposites” to describe the entire range of human experiences. The point is not that every event is good, or that every season of life feels pleasant. The point is that this is what life in a fallen world looks like: it is full of different times, different rhythms, different seasons—some sweet, some bitter, some confusing, some painful.
And here’s one of the most humbling takeaways: we are not in control. We don’t choose our birth. We don’t choose the time or place we enter the world. We don’t choose the highs and lows. And we don’t ultimately choose the day of our death either. Time is not something we can command; it’s something that commands us and carries us along. Often life doesn’t feel like we’re directing it but feels like it’s happening to us.
If you’ve ever felt that before, the book of Ecclesiastes understands you well. But Solomon is not trying to push us into despair. Instead, he is setting the stage to help us ask the deeper questions: If life is made up of these constant seasons, if things come and go, rise and fall, then what is the point of it all? What gain is there in all our toil? Where is all of this going?
After the poem in vs. 1-8, the camera angle shifts in vs. 9-13. God now comes clearly into view. Solomon says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Eccl. 3:11). That’s a stunning statement, not because every season feels beautiful, but because God has a purpose and ‘fittingness’ even when we can’t see it.
In other words: the times and seasons of your life are not random. They’re not meaningless. They’re not outside God’s control. Behind every thread of the tapestry that God is weaving—every joy, every sorrow, every ‘loss’ and every ‘gain’—stands the sovereign hand of your Heavenly Father.
At the same time, Solomon acknowledges something we all know, we can’t always understand what God is doing. God has “put eternity into man’s heart,” and yet we “cannot find out what God has done from beginning to the end” (Eccl. 3:11). We long to know the “why”? We want the full picture. But most of the time, we only see a small, tiny corner of the tapestry of our lives that He is weaving.
That’s why a new year can feel so unsettling to many of us. We want clarity. We want control. We want guarantees about what this upcoming year may bring. But God calls us to something much deeper than control: He calls us to trust Him. If God is sovereign over time, if He is sovereign over all the circumstance of our lives, then you can trust Him in whatever the season you’re in right now; whether it’s joyful or painful, clear or confusing, peaceful or unsettled. His apparent silence is not indifference. His timing is not forgetfulness. He has not “lost the thread.”
Solomon even addresses the injustices we see in this world, the wickedness in places where there should be righteousness (Eccl. 3:16). And he reminds us: God will judge. God will make all things right. There is “a time for every matter and for every work” (Eccl. 3:17). That means evil will not have the last word. Injustice will not reign forever. God has fixed a day when He will judge and make all things new.
One of the most surprising themes in Ecclesiastes is how often Solomon calls us to enjoyment. Not shallow pleasure. Not escapism. Not “eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” Rather he calls us to a “God-centered” enjoyment of life as a gift. He says, “There is nothing better…than to be joyful and to do good…also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil, this is God’s gift to man.” (Eccl. 3:12-13). We are to see our lives as gifts from God. The good and the hard seasons are both ‘gifts’ in their own way. God wants you to enjoy your life, enjoy His gifts, enjoy the ordinary things, and remember you do not deserve any of it. Taste buds, a hot cup of coffee, the enjoyment of cheeseburgers, playing at the park with your kids. These are all gifts!
The same is true with work (vs. 13). Work is not the result of the fall. God created us to work. Yes, the fall has made work painful and can at times seem futile, but God wants us to take pleasure in labor as a gift and glorify Him in it.
Solomon turns again to death and reminds us that our days are numbered. “All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.” (Eccl. 3:20). Psalm 139 says that God has written all our days in His book. “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:16). King Solomon also says that what happens to man and beasts is the same, we all die (Eccl 3:19).
I wonder if you realize that one day you are going to die. That’s not meant to sound morbid, but just reality. Unless Christ returns first, you will die. Death is the sentence upon a world under the curse of sin (Genesis 3:19; Hebrews 9:27). Solomon asks who knows what happens after death. “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?” (Eccl. 4:21) In other words, from our observation “under the sun,” from a mere human, material vantage point, we cannot know. But for the Christian, we do know! Because of the cross and empty tomb, because Jesus died and rose again, death is not the end.
God has sent His Son in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4). Christ died at just the right time (Romans 5:6). God has fixed a day of judgment and raised Jesus from the dead (Acts 17:30-31). The gospel alone is now what gives true meaning to our lives in this world. So, number your days. Make the most of the time you have. Live for what truly matters. And live knowing that resurrection and new creation are coming. No matter the pain and hardship you may face, it has been purposed by a loving, all-wise, sovereign God who is making everything beautiful in its time.
So, as we begin this new year in 2026, the book of Ecclesiastes calls us to a posture that runs against our natural instincts. We want control and certainty. We want to map out the year ahead with guarantees. But Solomon gently, and at times uncomfortably, reminds us that our lives are not ultimately in our hands. Our times and seasons are in the hands of a sovereign and all-wise God.
And that is not bad news. It is deeply comforting news. The God who governs time is not distant or indifferent. He is wise. He is good. He is the God who sent His Son “in the fullness of time” to redeem sinners and conquer death. He is the God who makes everything beautiful in its time, even when we cannot yet see how.
That means you do not step into this year alone. You step into it under the care of a Good Father. Some of you enter this new year in a season of joy. Give thanks. Enjoy His gifts. Receive them as grace. Some of you enter 2026 in a season of sorrow, uncertainty, or loss. Take heart. Your season is not wasted. God sees what you cannot. He is at work, even when His purposes feel hidden. Some of you enter this year with big plans and dreams. Hold them with open hands. Trust God’s timing more than your own. Some of you enter 2026 aware of your weakness, your sin, your need. Look again to Christ. The empty tomb reminds us that time, death, and injustice do not have the final word.
Father, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
