Broken Into Beautiful: A 3-Day DevotionalSample

Beautiful In Its time: Redemption Story – To Be Continued…

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “God has made everything beautiful in its time.” It begs a simple one-word question or two… “Everything?” “Really?” “Beautiful?” How can that be, right?

There are likely things coming to your mind right now that you know are not beautiful. Circumstances, seasons, traumas, tragedies, heartbreaks, illnesses, losses, global injustices, and disasters… anything but beautiful. But the verse doesn’t say that these things are beautiful, or that God made them, but that He makes them beautiful in their time.

When this verse was penned, the word, “tragedy,” had not yet entered the author’s vocabulary. We can thank the Greeks for introducing drama to our lives! The Hebrew Scriptures do not hold a word for tragedy and the cultural understanding for those confusing, heartbreaking, life-altering circumstances is that they were, “to be continued.” If there were parts of the story that were not beautiful, then the story must not be finished yet. If it’s not beautiful, then it’s not yet its time.

It's unlikely that we would have looked at Da Vinci’s The Last Supper as it was being painted and thought how ugly it was as a work in progress. If anything, we would have marvelled at the emerging beauty and even more so at the Master Artist. The verse goes on to say that God has set eternity in the hearts of all people, almost inferring that we need to look at time through eternity’s lens, and when we do, we find hope that the broken will be beautiful, in its time.

Joseph being left for dead, then sold into slavery by his brothers was certainly not beautiful. Nor was his time in prison. Yet he says those same brothers, after saving their lives, that what they intended for harm, God had intended for good, for the salvation of many.

We could assume that Joseph was an exception, but the Scriptures are filled with examples of broken being turned into something beautiful… in its time. That is why we can have hope; even the “ugliest” of seasons can, in His hands, be redeemed… be made beautiful. It’s only a matter of time. It’s faith, combined with patience, that is hope. Without time we don’t require patience and without patience, we have something more like presumption, that things will change on our schedule, or despair when they don’t.

Broken into beautiful is a process. It takes time. It has a time of its own. This is how we can be both made in His image whilst at the same time being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory (2 Cor 3:18). We are eternal beings and humans here for a moment in time. We need to learn to live with time as our friend. There’s no shortcut from broken to beautiful. Restoration takes time. Redemption is, like the Redeemer, both present and continuing. Time is a gift that was made for us by the One who has all the time in the world. Timing, however, is in His hands. Jesus tells the disciples, more than once, that timing is not theirs to know, but trust is, hope is, He is. And He makes everything beautiful in its time.

Is there something that you are facing that does not look beautiful? Maybe even the opposite of beautiful? Could you take time to sit with it in His Presence and ask Him to help you find hope, in Him, not the circumstances? Ask Him to help you put your trust in Him and His timing, knowing He makes everything, even the broken things, beautiful in its time.