A Time for Everything
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent 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
If there is a time for everything, how do we know that what we’re doing now is the right time to do it?
Most read this passage with a sense of reassurance, affirming their belief that they’ve chosen the ostensibly right thing to do, and that things will go into their favor because of their unwavering faith in God or an overarching optimism.
Conversely, others read this passage with a deep fear that the actions that they’ve chosen to take and the desires of their heart are untimely; they carry an unabating apprehension that they are haplessly misaligned with the course of the universe or with the framework of God’s plan.
Time and time again, we prove over and over—whether in the minute facets of everyday life or the more significant events over the course of human history—that we are incapable of accurately predicting outcomes and determining the right course of action towards complex problems.
We will never know the right time.
But the best we can do is pretend we know.
Because perhaps the ultimate fear of humanity is that there is no right or wrong. Perhaps this harrowing notion that we are infinitesimally insignificant specks of dust, suspended amidst an indifferent universe—without a narrative, without a story, without form nor function, without purpose nor agency, without reason nor rhyme—is far too much to bear.
In our conceptions of a godless world and a godlike world alike, we are powerless. We cannot even begin to fathom the true nature of existence. We are all wrong when we read this passage and contemplate the notion of a right time or a wrong time. But, as humans, it seems as though we would much rather be wrong. We entertain ourselves by chasing these elusive definitions of right and wrong to beguile ourselves into believing that we are in control, that we—against all odds, fraught with uncertainty and imperfection, cursed by the defects and faults of our design—can bring shape to a shapeless world. Even if it means destroying ourselves in the process, we can, at the very least, be proud that we did something.
