For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, 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
With the end of 2016 looming, we are afforded the chance to look back and to see what has been. For many, 2016 is a year better left in the past. As a matter of fact, many have begun to treat 2016 as if it is an entity with an agenda to destroy all that is good in the world. There is even a GoFundMe account to protect Betty White from the evil grips of 2016 (it has currently raised over $7,000). As people reminisce on the year, death, riots, elections, and injustice seem to tell the story; it is only part of the story.
In the same way that many people sanitize reality by cutting out all of the icky parts, we can very easily let the negative overwhelm the good. The reality of 2016 is that, just like every other year, it had some good moments, some bad ones, and everything else in between. It gave us some moments to laugh and some to weep; some moments to dance and some to mourn. It was, in the grand scheme of human history, a rather normal year.
That feels a bit non-committal; most people want to feel as if we are working toward healing the world and making it a better place or destroying it and needing to readjust our trajectory. While we do need to make changes AND we are doing some good, neither of these realities ever really overcome the other. As Ecclesiastes points out, the human condition is much more cyclical than we often think about it (I preached on this text here); it is both/and.
The point is not that we need to keep Ying and Yang in balance; I am not a believer in some Platonic duality that is necessary for existence. The point is that the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017 are not beginnings and ends at all. They are a part of the cycle of life. A messy, frustrating, exciting, surprising life. While many people died this year, many more were born. While there was conflict, there was also so much peace and unity. Some things were lost, but so much was found.
In all of this, I want to challenge you to make a resolution moving forward: keep being a joyful participant in life. Don’t let the frustration get you down. You don’t have to pretend everything is awesome under a forced smile…but just remember that there is a time for every matter under heaven. Make time for all of it.