The New Year has arrived and with it all the joys and celebrations of New Year parties and family get-togethers. Pauline and I had a very full Christmas and New Year and it was great to share the time with family. For some, the Christmas period has been touched by sadness owing to the death of a loved one, others have received life changing news about their health or the health of a member of their family. Pauline and I have now heard where I will be serving as a minister and in August we will be moving to the Chester and Stoke-on-Trent district, Northwich and Windsford Circuit where I will be the minister of five churches.<\/p>\n
As Pauline and I begin to think about moving to a new place we are very excited about all the things that God will do in our lives mixed with feelings of trepidation about the challenges we will also face.<\/p>\n
A well-known and often quoted verse from the bible says that there is a time and a season for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) it begins:\u201cFor everything there is a<\/p>\n
\u201cFor everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.\u201dLess well-known is the next part of the passage which says: (Ecclesiastes 3:9=15) \u201c9What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13moreover, it is God\u2019s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Less well-known is the next part of the passage which says: (Ecclesiastes 3:9=15)<\/p>\n
(Ecclesiastes 3:9=15) \u201c9What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13moreover, it is God\u2019s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I like the way that the writer captures a sense of the power and size of God, how we are shown that time moves on and that God is present in every time and every place; God knows what we need in sadness and joy and provides for us food and drink and pleasure in the things that we do each day. The writer also captures the reality that time moves on and that people and things change.<\/p>\n
The sense that \u2018time and tide wait for no one\u2019 should not be a fatalistic sense but can provide us with the opportunity to celebrate all the good things that God has done in our lives. As time move on let us build memories for others and ourselves that are full of the joy and presence of God taking every opportunity to share the Good news about Jesus Christ with all we meet.<\/p>\n
God bless
\nTim Simms<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Year has arrived and with it all the joys and celebrations of New Year parties and family get-togethers. Pauline and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-05-06 21:43:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starbeckmethodistchurch.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}