Please read “E1. Meaning to the Meaningless” before reading any of my other articles on Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

What time is it? If you are Solomon, it does not matter what time it is. Everything happens when it happens, and we have no control over the matter. God does everything in his time, and we cannot change a thing. We cannot even fathom it; it is totally beyond our understanding. We are born, and we die, and God is in total control. We can add nothing to, nor take anything away from what God is doing. Solomon believes this because he believes that God exists, but he also believes that he cannot know God, and cannot have a relationship with him. Solomon believes that with all of his wisdom he is limited to only knowing what he can perceive with his five senses.

If we cannot know God, then God exists at one of two extremes. Solomon believed in the extreme authoritarian God. Everything happens at a predestined time according to God’s will. There is another extreme. Some believe God created the universe and humanity, he gave us freedom and then he took his hands off; everything that has happened since is either chance or the result of man’s actions. I believe the God I know, and the God revealed through Jesus is in the middle of the two extremes.

I knew a woman, who’s son, while driving drunk, killed a man trimming his hedges. She testified in church, that she found peace in knowing that it was that man’s time to die. She believed in Solomon’s God. The God I know gave humanity freedom, and when her son used his freedom to drive drunk, he killed a man. God did not kill that man, her son did.

God has not predestined the times of our lives. God wants us to discover the opportune and appropriate times of our lives. God’s Spirit will guide us. The Christian lives in God’s time, not by mandate, but by obedience. What time is it? It is time to be obedient.