Pastor Luis Rodriguez
This past week my wife moved down to Weslaco, as I went to Houston to pack the last of our things and get ready to drive “home” together. I looked back as we were driving out of the neighborhood, I could only imagine what wife was thinking of as we were leaving the neighborhood where she grew up, the neighborhood where she had lived until adulthood, her parent’s house, right next door, where she had lived since birth until we got married and moved to our first home together. As my mother in-law, whom I call Momma Gillis, would say “y’all just bought the house next door this past spring and now you’re leaving me?”. I think of the many plans that we made to move back to the neighborhood where my wife lived for most of her life, and how now we must tear down for the new plans God has for us in Weslaco. I can only imagine her sadness. For myself, as I leave the city where I lived for most of my life, a city that will forever be in my heart, because I came to know the lord in that city, I grew in my faith in that city, I came to say yes to the ministry in that city, I went to seminary in that city, I got married to my beautiful wife in that city. All those memories and the ever-changing adventure in our walk with Christ and the places that he has taken us and now we find ourselves in a new place with a new Familia of Faith, but one thing that stayed constant is the never-ending construction on Houston’s highways.
I say all this to bring this word today, there were times of happiness and times of sadness, times to celebrate life and times to mourn, and these words and thoughts made me think of the words in the book of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 where the teacher reminds us that there is a time for everything.
In our lives there is a season and a time for everything, it reminds us that as we live there is:
1. A time when we were born and there will be a day when we will die, one day we were born into this world and one day we will depart this world, but we have the security of our eternal salvation in Jesus.
2. A time to plant and a time to uproot, just ilke the life events of this past week, us uprooting our lives from Houston to come down to Weslaco, there was a time where we planted our lives in Houston. In all of our lives there will be a time when we plant and we think that it will be forever, but we must always be ready to uproot when the Lord tells us that is time to move.
3. A time to kill and a time to heal, Solomon is not condoning killing but giving a reminder that killing happens. It is true that under certain conditions killing was authorized and considered appropriate as punishment for some crimes under the law. But with killing there will come a time to heal.
4. A time to tear down and a time to build, there will come a time for us to tear down friendships, relationships, or maybe just even our lives, but with that there will also come a time for us to build up, to build new friendships (which my wife and I look forward to), new relationships, new life. As we take a look at the past to face the future, I look forward to see what we can build together for God’s kingdom in our city of Weslaco and beyond.
5. A time to weep and a time to laugh, there are times of sadness and a time when we will weep, but is not all grim, for we know that there will be a time when our weeping will be turned in to laughter, and we will be able to laugh again along those who are close to us.
6. A time to mourn and a time to dance, it feels that we have been mourning in our church for a long time, by the deaths of our beloved brothers and sisters in the faith that have gone ahead to be with the Lord, but we have the hope that we will be reunited when we all can rejoice at the foot of God’s throne, and in time we will be able to dance and rejoice in this life also.
7. A time to gather stones and a time to cast them away, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time for us to gather and a time scatter.
8. A time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, there is time when we search for things, whether it be our career, our families, or friendships, but there is time when we must give up on things that we may never find, like the remote when it gets lost in the couch. A time when we must save those things that are precious to us, but also a time to throw out those things that we no longer need.
9. A time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, there is a time for us to tear things but also a time to mend those things, may it be relationships, or a friendship, but there will also be a time for us to mend those relationships and friendships. Sometimes we get in trouble because we don’t know when to be silent, and many times we must remain silent, but with silence there is a time of reflection and we can better articulate what we want to say, and by this we will be better prepared for when our time to speak comes.
10. A time to love and a time to hate, we may take these words in this verse as hating a person that we once loved, but I like to see it this way, as to hate the sin that we were part of at one time and especially a sin that we loved. But there is a time for us to love and a time to hate.
11. A time for war and a time for peace, right now these words ring fresh in our ears because of the war going on in Ukraine, but we trust that there will be a time for peace for the Ukrainians, in the same way there was a time when we were at war with God, but thanks to Jesus becoming our prince of peace, and thus giving us true shalom in our lives.
I love these verses because it reminds us that in our lives we will experience many moments, some happy, some sad and it’s a reminder that it is ok for us to cry, to be sad, to mourn. We may experience these emotions but in time we will heal from them and though we may experience these happy moments, we will only experience the fullness of God wen we are in His presence. On that day, God will turn my sadness into happiness, my weeping into laughter, and my mourning into joy and I will join with the saints in singing “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord almighty”.
Our move from Houston was bittersweet, we leave behind our family, our church family and friends, but we look forward to making new friends, and we can certainly say that we feel welcomed and a part of the Familia of Faith at FBC Weslaco. Thank you for making us feel at home, and I look forward, now that my better half is with me, to see what we can do together for the growth of the kingdom in our beautiful city of Weslaco.
My prayer this week is that we remember that there is a season for everything, regardless if you are in a happy or sad season, just know that the best is yet to come. God bless you beloved and may you have a great weekend, and I can sincerely say “It is good to be home!”