A Time for Everything: Finding God’s Purpose in Every Season

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 holds some of the most familiar words in the Bible, the ones many people know from the Byrds’ 1965 song “Turn, Turn, Turn” long before they know where they come from. In this episode of the Sermon Notes Podcast, Jay Strother and Brian Ball pick up that passage as part of the sermon series through Ecclesiastes called “Chasing the Wind” and ask what Solomon meant when he wrote that God has put eternity into the human heart even as we live bound by time.

Much of the conversation centers on two ways of understanding time: chronos, the ticking of the clock, and kairos, what a moment is actually for. Jay and Brian talk about how easy it is to live either stuck in the past or always waiting on what’s next, and how both keep us from actually being present with God and with the people around us. They also spend time on the gift and discipline of Sabbath, sharing how stepping away from constant productivity, even when it draws pushback from coaches or teachers, has shaped their families toward rest instead of burnout.

The episode closes on repentance, not as a scary, churchy word, but as a turning back toward God when we catch ourselves trying to control time rather than trusting the One who holds it. It’s a grounded, honest look at what it means to number our days and actually let that number shape how we live them.