Ecclesiastes 3: Happy Even When Nothing Goes as Planned

Introduction

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." On October 4, 2026, Kōichi Kondō, a trainer at the Total Counseling School, preached from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 at the Église Kōjō de Yonezawa in Japan. His title sums up the whole message: even what does not go the way you want can be a happiness.

The preacher speaks as a man who knows failure from the inside. A former school refuser, he went through several neuroses and a severe depression. "I lost count of the times I thought my life was over." With plenty of humor, he shows why we handle setbacks so badly, and what changes when we know the Lord stays by our side.

Outline of the Message

1. One Success in Five Tries

A job has only a 20% chance of succeeding. Would you take it? Ambitious business owners say yes without hesitation. For them, a 20% success rate means that if you try at least five times, you have a good chance of succeeding once.
The preacher cites the book "One Win, Nine Losses" by Tadashi Yanai, the man who turned Uniqlo into a global company. He had imagined Yanai as someone who had never failed. In reality, his life was a string of failures, and it was in the middle of those failures that the success that covered them all was born.
Tadashi Yanai said, in essence, that a leader who claims never to have failed is suspect. It is a remark that can only come from someone who has known countless failures.
Ecclesiastes says the same thing: there is a time to succeed and a time to fail many times over, a time to win and a time to lose. "Just because things did not go the way you wanted does not mean it is all over. That season is part of your life too."

2. All Our Seasons Are in God's Hand

As you read "a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to seek, and a time to lose," everyone sees scenes from their own life. In a word: there are not only good times, there are also hard times, and even those, each of us goes through in God's hand.
Joys, sorrows and sufferings are never wasted. Even in events we do not understand, God is there, and he uses them.
A counselor who supports teachers once confided a sentence to him, which he repeats twice: "When things do not go the way you want, it is often because they are going according to God's will."
The Bible affirms it from beginning to end: you do not govern your life by yourself, you are kept alive by the hand of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 gathers up the whole passage. The Japanese Bible translates it: "God's work is beautiful in its time" (the World English Bible says: "He has made everything beautiful in its time."). What makes your life beautiful is the Lord who created you and gave you the gift of this life.

3. Thank God My Life Did Not Follow My Plans

One day, Kōichi Kondō asked himself what he would have become if everything had gone the way he wanted. The answer frightened him: already selfish and proud, he would have become unbearable, a man who tells of his exploits instead of proclaiming the Gospel.
He would also have become ungrateful, and as capricious as the child he once was in the toy aisles of the big department stores, stamping his feet and screaming at the slightest refusal. His outlook would have narrowed, unable to see things differently or to understand other people's pain.
"I said it from the bottom of my heart: thank God my life did not go the way I wanted." When everything goes well, that is a beautiful thing. When nothing goes as planned, that is just as beautiful a thing.
He tells of meeting the coach of a school famous for its women's soccer team, several times champion of Japan, with many players who went on to the national team. He asked her the secret of its strength. The coach smiled: "Losing."
When they lose, the coach explains, the players have to face their weakness, and they surely grow. The bonds of the team grow tighter. Respect for the opponent is born, because after tasting the bitterness of defeat, you understand what the beaten team feels. There is a time to lose and a time to win.

4. Changing Your Baseline

Why do we handle what does not go our way so badly? Searching his heart, the preacher found this: he thought that having everything go according to his wishes was normal, and that the opposite was abnormal.
A couple once asked his advice about their marriage. To the husband, he answered with a straight face: "A wife in a bad mood is normal. Take that as your baseline." The husband was stunned, and the wife burst out laughing.
Many husbands assume their wife should always be in a good mood. At the first sign of irritation, they get angry in turn. With the new baseline, they stop reacting every time, notice that she is not always in a bad mood, and see more of her moments of joy. A virtuous circle begins.
To the wife, he said: "A husband who does not understand you is normal." A woman who expects to be understood ends up disappointed, then tells herself he will never understand, and stops talking to him. That is one of the reasons conversation disappears in families. With the new baseline, the day he understands her becomes a small miracle, and her spontaneous joy spills over onto him.
The same goes for life as a whole. Moving from "life must go the way I want" to "life does not necessarily go the way I want" changes your outlook. What does not go as planned is neither evil nor misfortune. When you rejoice, the Lord rejoices with you. When you are at a loss, his hand never lets go of you.
Someone once told him: "Whatever we do, life does not go the way we want." He agreed, then heard himself add: "But, all things considered, it is also life that ends up turning out for the best." He now thinks it was the Lord who put those words in his mouth.

5. The Lord's Purpose Prevails

In Obihiro, in Hokkaidō, a thriving pastry shop bore the same name as another shop on the island. The dispute nearly ended up in court, and the employees were ready to fight.
The owner told them calmly: "Our job is to give our customers good pastries that make them happy. The time, energy and money we would put into a lawsuit, let us put into our cakes." The team rallied behind him and gave up the name it was so proud of.
The new name was given by the monk of a neighboring temple: Rokkatei, the Hokkaidō house known for its butter sand cookies and Japanese sweets. That is where its rise began. Giving up your own name, what could be more unfair? Yet a great happiness was hidden in that setback.
Proverbs 19:21: "There are many plans in a man's heart, but Yahweh's counsel will prevail." Every time he reads this verse, the preacher hears: just because you did not get what you wanted does not mean it is over. That is where the Lord's work begins, a work that goes far beyond our disappointments and despair.
"Look at me: my life is made of things that did not go the way I wanted." He did not choose to refuse school, nor his three neuroses, nor his severe depression. But he alone thought it was all over. From there the Lord began a work beyond what he imagined, until placing him in this pulpit today.
Jesus himself knew what it is when things do not go the way you want. In Gethsemane, he honestly prayed to his Father to take this cup away from him, the cup of the cross. But he lived not by his own will, but by the Father's. There was a time to die on the cross and a time to rise from the tomb. Because of that, you and I are saved.

6. The Lord Was with Joseph

"A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance." The Bible does not say that weeping is forbidden. It does not ask you to convince yourself that everything is fine when your heart is broken. You can weep, and cry out honestly to God: "What should I do?"
Remember: beside you, as you groan "why does nothing go the way I want?", the Lord is always there.
Joseph is the example. Envied by his brothers, left half dead, sold as a slave in Egypt, then falsely accused and thrown into prison, he saw his entire life torn away from him.
Yet in the midst of these sufferings, the Bible repeats: "Yahweh was with Joseph." As a slave, the Lord was with him. As a prisoner, the Lord was with him.
Joseph's happiness did not come from everything going the way he wanted, nor from the end of his sufferings. It came from the Lord being with him. Later, God turned those sufferings into great blessing, but the essential point remains that the Lord was at his side at all times.
At the Kōjō Church, people often say that "trials are a treasure." The preacher admits that in the moment of trial, he often finds it hard to believe. What grounds happiness when nothing goes as planned is this fact: the Lord is with you, you are not alone.

7. "People Do Not Owe Me Thanks"

Among his hidden baselines there was one: "People should thank me." Most do. But when someone did not, he said nothing, and yet a thought rose up in him: "After all I have done for him..."
He decided to change his baseline: "People do not owe me thanks." The result stunned him: "The fresh breath of the Holy Spirit did not just stir in my heart, it rushed in."
He first discovered that he was unknowingly keeping a strange set of accounts: this one thanked me, that one too, that other one has not yet. "Who do I think I am?" He felt ashamed, and the counting stopped by itself. An inexpressible sense of freedom passed through his heart.
A Japanese proverb says: "Carve the kindnesses you receive in stone, write the ones you give on water." He now understands that this is wisdom from the elders for keeping the heart healthy. Give your love, then forget it.
His gratitude changed in nature. When someone thanks him, he is deeply touched, since it is not owed. He understood that the one who lacked gratitude was himself. He knelt down: "Lord, forgive me." As he looked up, he saw the smile of Jesus: "Well done, you have discovered a new you."
What does not go the way we want makes us meet a grace of God we had not noticed. We are freed from the childish idea that God is present when everything goes well and absent when nothing does. In both cases, the Lord stays beside you. That is why you can declare that everything God does is beautiful in its time.

Key Takeaways

There is a time to succeed and a time to fail: a failure does not mean it is all over.
Our sufferings, like our joys, remain in God's hand and are never wasted.
Much of our anger comes from a hidden baseline: thinking that everything must go the way we want.
Joseph's happiness did not come from favorable circumstances, but from the Lord being with him.
No longer expecting thanks sets you free and lets you rediscover gratitude.

Personal Application

What situation not going the way you want is making you say right now that it is all over?
What hidden baseline ("my spouse must understand me," "people must thank me," "my life must succeed") feeds your irritation?
Looking at your life, can you name a setback that God used to make you grow?
Do you dare to weep and speak honestly to God about what hurts you, knowing he is beside you?
What kindness received can you carve in stone this week, and what favor given can you let flow away on water?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "there is a time for everything" mean in Ecclesiastes 3?

For Kōichi Kondō, this passage is a reminder that life is not made only of good times: there is a time to succeed and a time to fail, a time to win and a time to lose. Even the hard seasons remain in God's hand, and none of them is wasted.

Why do we suffer so much when things do not go the way we want?

The preacher sees a hidden baseline: deep down, we think everything should go according to our wishes, and that the opposite is abnormal. He suggests changing that baseline: life does not necessarily go the way you want. Then everything that goes well becomes a gift, and what does not stops being lived as a misfortune.

Can you weep before God when everything goes wrong?

Yes. Ecclesiastes 3 says there is a time to weep. Kōichi Kondō stresses that the Bible does not ask you to force yourself to see happiness in sadness. You can weep and cry out honestly to God. As with Joseph, the Lord stands beside you in the middle of the trial.