Day 292: “Turn! Turn! Turn!” To Everything There is a Season

DAY 292

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-two    Thursday 31 December 2020

“Turn! Turn! Turn!”

To Everything There is a Season

I was leaving a hospital parking lot and turned on the car radio picking up a secular station to hear God’s Words in the words of a very popular ‘secular’ song written by Pete Seeger. “To everything there is a season,” he sang, quoting verbatim from Ecclesiastes chapter 3, “and a time for every purpose under heaven.” I had just left a loved one in a critical health crisis that had rendered me emotionally exhausted. To this day I can still hear the words and The Byrds singing them as though just for me. God was telling me one on one that there is a season for everything and that what we were experiencing was just that, a season, and that like all seasons it would come to an end – turn, turn, turn.   

Today marks the end of a season in my life as interim pastor of Patuxent Presbyterian Church in California, Maryland. It was a surprisingly short season – fifteen months, ten of which were spent in lockdown due to the pandemic. The weekend everything was cancelled in the church I began this devotional which stands as of today at 292 entries. I intend to continue it for the duration of the pandemic and beyond. You can access it at the following sites:

Online at: bayleydailydevotional.blogspot.com  

Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/BayleyDailyDevotional

Reflective questions: And what about you? We are all in the enveloping season of a global pandemic, but within it are individual seasons, chapters. Are there some that you can choose, need to choose, to bring to a close as of this last day of the year so that you can start in a new place in some way in your life? A season by definition not only has a beginning but an ending.

Will you ask the Holy Spirit to show you all seasons within and how you are to relate to them this last day of the season called 2020? Will you be humble and obey what he shows you to do?

Reflective Scripture: Numbers 6:24-26 – (The Aaronic Blessing) - “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

+ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Reflective hymn:

“I Know Who Holds Tomorrow” – Ira Stanphil (1914-1993)

I don’t know about tomorrow, I just live for day to day,

I don’t borrow from the sunshine for its skies may turn to gray;

I don’t worry o’er the future, for I know what Jesus said,

And today I’ll walk beside Him for He knows what lies ahead.

Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand,

But I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand.