and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,”
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
The wisdom of King Solomon was rooted in his faith in God, which made him realize that God directs everything in a way that seem to be shaped in a circle. I suppose, the lesson for us from the teachings of Solomon is that we should face our problems with dignity and accept God’s plan for us. The encouraging news is this, with God on our side, there is a chance for long lasting solutions.
However, scripture also reminds us that timing is important and it is the key to the secret to have peace within ourselves and with each other. To discover the benefits of this peace we shall accept and praise God’s perfect timing. The cowardly and dangerous thing one can do is, doubt and turn away from God’s timing, because ignoring God’s advice while we claim to have faith, leads to self-serving behavior. This attitude is sinful and rebellious toward the Almighty.
The question that bothers me as a pastor, a servant of God in the Hungarian Reformed Church in America is this, what are we doing or rather what are we not doing to serve Jesus Christ as the head of the church and why?
For over six years I am an ordained minister, and a full-time pastor under the aegis of our church leadership, which in the life of a congregation considered just a short period of time, but with the impotence of our classis governance, it seems like the abyss of eternity. It is suffocating to be part of the annual crying and whining about how many of our congregations are dying and disappearing, while the same autocratic, old-fashioned leadership rejects meaningful changes on every level. Everything is the same old, same old. Year after year there is a demand from the leadership to save various congregations from closing, but why do they wait and do nothing for years to help struggling churches? Why do we have leaders if they don’t lead? Why do we have pastors on the roll, who do nothing for our classis, for our congregations? Why do we have guests in our annual meeting to lecture us on subjects that important for them, for personal reasons and not for our churches, for our struggling pastors or for our parishioners?
If God says, there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens, including time to born, a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, why aren’t we not hear it and doing it for the sake of the church of our Lord, Jesus Christ?
Reverend Tamas Devecseri