He Has Made Everything Beautiful In Its Time

From Ecclesiastes 3:11.

What would you say your life looks like now, is it beautiful? If not do not think much of it, as long as you continue trusting God He will make it beautiful. Allow me to tell you some brief but true stories of people I know about. At certain points in their lives the picture was not good but later on, it worked out well.

Story One

He was well-educated, wealthy and with a high profile in his city. He had his own understanding of life and hated people who opposed it. He was an arrogant man and his education always made him feel more important than anyone who was not as learned. One day however he came to know about Christ and it changed everything. He realized that his knowledge, wealth and status meant nothing as far as eternity was concerned. He was a transformed man and begun to share his new found joy with people. However, following a chain of events, he found himself in prison though he did not deserve it. He prayed to God many times for his release but several months went by and nothing happened. He spent much of his life locked up: he could not understand why.  Nevertheless he continued to communicate with people of his faith through writing.

Story Two

She was a young girl when both her parents died. Most of her life she wondered why other children had their mother and father but she only an elder cousin. It always seemed unfair even though he treated her like a daughter. He taught her about God and she grew up with this knowledge. He was well respected but they did not have much, so she often relied on prayer for provision. She hoped to get married some day and perhaps give her children a better childhood.

Story Three

This man’s life perplexed all who knew him. He was the kindest man you could meet, and although blessed with much, he was humble and faithful as a believer. Yet in the space of a few months he lost all his fortune. In that same season he also experienced the death of more than five of his close family members and later on the man himself fell desperately ill. Most people expected him to die.

Story Four  

As for this young woman she was a non-believer who had grown up among people who lived as they chose. In spite of that though, everyone knew her as a good person. She was honest, decent and always willing to help. This young woman eventually met a man who was from a family that had faith in God. She got married and became close with the man’s mother. In the process of time, she became a believer herself. However soon after this, her beloved husband died and she became dreadfully poor.

How Their Lives Turned Out

The first person suffered a lot in prison but because he spent so much time writing to those outside, they accumulated a significant amount of written material. Since it was about faith, some people thought it would be good if the letters were collected and published. Indeed the letters were included in a book of faith and hundreds of millions of people have read and continue to read those letters long after the time in which he lived.

The young lady in the second story married a leader of a great nation and was more than able to give her children the life she never had. Added to this, as a first lady she used her influence to do a lot of good including saving her people from a political plot to harm them.

The man whose life perplexed everyone because of the terrible things that happened to him, the one on the brink of death, well he recovered from his sickness. God healed him completely and he was able to work again. As he rebuilt his life, good fortune came his way regularly and it was not long before he was wealthy. More children were born to him, he continued to prosper and those who knew him before were amazed at how blessed he was.

The young woman in the final story who lost her husband and experienced poverty happened to meet a pleasant (and prosperous) man who was a believer. This man married her and took her into his home. She soon had a child and knew the joy of being a mother for the first time. This son of theirs was in the lineage of a world-renowned leader.

Conclusion

If you hadn’t guessed already these people were the Biblical personalities Paul, Esther, Job and Ruth respectively. I used a different perspective so you could relate to what they went through. We see that in all their lives there was a time when it was not beautiful. But in the end—in its time, God indeed made all things beautiful. So if life does not look too good now, be encouraged, it will get better—He will make it beautiful.