Reason, Season, or Lifetime
You have probably come across the saying, “People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. (If you are interested, I have the poem linked here.) I am not into pop-culture pseudosociology, especially when trying to sum up complex interactions in a pithy quote. However, “your mileage may vary”. It is good to reflect on your relationships, reason, season, lifetime. It is also good to reflect on the eternal relationship in Jesus.
Why the people in our lives? And why the people no longer in our lives? We try to wrap our minds around God’s Providence, his foreknowledge; the relationship between predestination, election, and free will. (It starts my thought processes revving just typing those ideas!) Try to take solace in the fact that there is a God, and neither of us are him.
Yet, there are people: fellow creations of God, with whom we are designed to interact. St Paul has some advice on this:
So whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do everything to the glory of God. Do not give offense to Jews, or Greeks, or God’s church, just as I also try to please all people in all things, by not seeking what is best for me but for the many, so that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, just as I am of Christ.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2010&version=EHV>
Or this from the author of Hebrews:
Continue to show brotherly love. Do not fail to show love to strangers, for by doing this some have welcomed angels without realizing it. Remember those in prison, as if you were fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated, as if you yourselves were also suffering bodily.
Marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers. Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. For God has said:
I will never leave you,
and I will never forsake you.
So then we say with confidence:
The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid.
What will man do to me?
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Carefully consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. For it is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2013&version=EHV>
Reason, season, lifetime, or eternity… Jesus says, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: The one who believes in me has eternal life.” (John 6:47 EHV) Do the people in your life know this?
Trust the Promises
Steve Skiver