By He Reads Truth
Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15, Matthew 5:4, John 16:33, John 16:20, 1 Peter 1:6-9, Psalm 30:1-12
Show up to any home with more than a couple of people living in it and you’re likely to find a whole jumble of life happening all at once—elation in the living room, sadness on the back porch, boredom in the bonus room, and amusement at the dining room table. Sometimes you’ll even find that complicated jumble of life happening in one person all at once.
Joy and sorrow sometimes take turns, but often they awkwardly elbow each other out for the same heart and head space. These emotions are occasionally fleeting, but other times they can come in full, lasting seasons of grief or celebration. So how do we steward the tension of the two, both in our own lives and in the lives of those we love? The writer of Ecclesiastes wrestled with this very reality, concluding: “There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven…a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4).
We are complex human beings in a complicated world, and in this world we will have occasion to both mourn and dance—sometimes at the very same time. This invitation to search the scriptures for wisdom is one worth accepting. Let’s learn from the psalmists, the patriarchs, the early Church letter writers, and from Jesus Himself how to weep well before the Lord and how to wipe our tears and raise our hands in praise.
Until all things are made new, read on!
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