Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

There is a time for everything,
    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,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.
What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

• Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

We will not hide them from their descendants;
    we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
    his power, and the wonders he has done.

• Psalm 78:4

The New Boilerplate

My wife filled a small book with “Angel” on the cover.  It was hidden with a box of crafting things.  On 18 July 2025, I thought I had posted the last of these.  But this little angel book held a prayer, followed by 71 quotes.  So, the “with a little help” series is back in business for a while.  And it will be fun for me.  She did not attribute any of the quotes.  The first quote was from James A. Garfield, the 20^th president of the USA.  The next one was disputed, with some thinking it originated with Teddy Roosevelt and others saying Fred Astaire.  After the prayer, these might be on the lighter side.

Her quote

“Time doesn’t become sacred until we have lived it.”

• John Burroughs, American naturalist and author

The Discussion

After the poetic time for this and time for that, Solomon talks about how we all need to have time to eat, drink and do good deeds.  The legacy of life then becomes the good that we can do in this world.

And in the verse from Psalm 78 speaks of the wonderous deeds of God.

So, the author speaks of our legacy, in effect.  We cannot measure what we have done until our doing is complete.  Thus our legacy that is left, according to scripture, is the good that God did through us.  No one needs to remember who we are in the process.

And I hate to pop the bubble of the author, but we are not around to consider our life to be sacred.  We will be judged.  If our name is in the book of Life, we are judged by the good and bad we have done, but then the bad is not held against us.  If our name is not in the book of Life, you will be cast into the lake of fire.  In either case, we do not get to decide if our life is sacred.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory