God Makes Everything Beautiful in Its Time
GCD Newsletter – Wednesday, September 6, 2023
The other day the news app on my phone suggested an article from The Wall Street Journal called “The Age When You Stop Feeling Young.” The subtitle indicated that the oldest millennials (which I am) are reaching the decade when people often start to notice their signs of aging.
I couldn’t tell if suggesting the article about aging on my phone was entirely random or if some algorithm thought I might need to read this article, like perhaps I’m the sort of person who is starting to notice that I’m older than I used to be.
Well, actually, I am the sort of person who is noticing I’m older than I used to be, but I don’t appreciate my phone passive-aggressively reminding me.
I also didn’t need all the GCD articles last week to remind me that I’m aging. Or maybe I did.
On Monday, our staff writer Lara d’Entremont wrote about contentment. On Wednesday, staff writer Tim Shorey wrote about waiting. And on Friday we published a book excerpt from Adam Ramsey about the seasons of life.
In their own way, each article poked my insecurities—but in a helpful way, the kind of poke used by the Great Physician to heal rather than hurt, as Lara writes. In Ramsey’s excerpt, he described the various seasons of life (our spring, summer, fall, and winter) and put them into twenty-year blocks of time. I am now, apparently, in the “autumn of midlife.” I suppose “autumn” sounds more sophisticated than “the fall of midlife,” but seeing my reality so plainly described still stung a bit.
By faith, however, I want to take not only Ramsey’s descriptions of aging to heart but also the promise he explained from Ecclesiastes: God has made each season beautiful in its time (Eccl. 3:11).
Perhaps by faith you need the same encouragement. No matter your current stage of life, level of discontentment, or situation of waiting, God is still God. And if you are in Christ, God will carry you through even your darkest winter, even if that winter ends in your death.
Thanks for reading,
Benjamin Vrbicek
Managing Editor
Gospel-Centered Discipleship
Last Week at GCDiscipleship.com
Finding Contentment in a World of Want
by Lara d’Entremont
How do we cultivate real contentment? Some of us may seek to achieve it by striving and toiling until we bring these realities to life. Others reach for it by creating a gratitude list that they review every morning at their bedside. Yet Scripture shows neither brings lasting contentment—we first need heart surgery by the Great Physician.
The Quiet Lessons We All Learn in Our Waiting Rooms:
Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#14)
by Tim Shorey
I’ve mentioned before that life is a waiting room. I’ve lost count how many big needs my wife Gayline and I have been praying for—and waiting for—for years! A headache healing. Cancer healing. Children that need the Lord. Unconverted family and friends that still don’t believe. Racial healing in our church local and the Church. Fruitfulness in certain gospel endeavors. Spiritual revival in the Church. We’re still sitting in the waiting room for these and so many others. And I’m sure we’re not alone. All God’s children have needs and grieve losses. We all believe. We all pray. We all weep. We all wait.
Why You Can Trust Your Savior in Every Season of Life
by Adam Ramsey
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Eccl. 3:1). So said Solomon, the wisest man to live until Jesus walked the earth. What follows this statement in Ecclesiastes is a poem that simply describes the way that life is. Solomon lays out 14 pairs of opposites which paint the cycles of beginnings and endings that every human being will experience. There is “a time to be born, and a time to die” (v. 2); “a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (v. 4); “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (v. 7)—and so on, with the eventual promise that God makes “everything beautiful in its time” (v. 11).
Insufficient Pastors, Sufficient Savior - Tuesday, September 26, 9:30-10:30PM
Are you a pastor that is tired and weary? Are you going to be at TGC 2023? Do you carry a feeling of being inadequate and insufficient for ministry? Join three pastors and authors, Jonathan Dodson (Unwavering Pastor), Ronnie Martin (Art of Pastoring), and Jeremy Writebol (Pastor, Jesus is Enough), as they aim to encourage and equip pastors and Christian leaders through a series of conversations about our calling, ministry, and the sufficiency of Jesus Christ for the church and our lives.
For more information, head to the GCD Website: