But you will say: How then has man been installed as the lord over things, according to Gen. 1:26,  if he cannot have dominion over them according to his own will and use them in keeping with his own desire? The answer is: We are installed as lords over things in such a way that we are able to use them for the present, but we are not able to have dominion over them by our anxiety and effort. No one is able by his effort to accomplish anything for the future. For how can someone who is uncertain about the future determine something about the future? Therefore God wants us to make use of creatures, but freely, as He has provided them, without our prescribing the time, the manner, and the hour. These are in the hand of the Lord, so that we should not think that it is in our hands to use things as we wish if He does not give them. Therefore Ecclesiasticus says (Ecclus. 15:14): “God left man in the power of his own inclination,” but He added the commandments by which man was to regulate his inclinations and actions.

“All things have their time,” that is, a definite hour.  If a man transgresses this and wants to accomplish everything by his own counsel and effort, he will have nothing from it but vanity. Many people work to get rich but gain nothing. … So also in the present passage: everything that men wish and desire. They strive for it and desire it, but they are merely undone; because they do not hit the precise hour that they have in mind, they accomplish nothing. Therefore one should commit things to God and make use of present things, refraining from a lust for future things. If you do otherwise, you will have nothing but affliction. (Luther’s Works, v.15 p.49-50)

Chapter 3:1. For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

Here too, as has been said before, Solomon is speaking about human works, that is, about works undertaken by human counsel. Because they do not observe this, the interpreters suppose that he is speaking here about the corruption of created things.  Therefore you should understand this as follows: All human works and efforts have a certain and definite time of acting, of beginning, and of ending, beyond human control. Thus this is spoken in opposition to free will. It is not up to us to prescribe the time, the manner, or the effect of the things that are to be done; and so it is obvious that here our strivings and efforts are unreliable. Everything comes and goes at the time that God has appointed. He proves this on the basis of examples of human works whose times lie outside the choice of man. From this he draws the conclusion that it is useless for men to be tormented by their strivings and that they do not accomplish anything, even though they were to burst, unless the proper time and the hour appointed by God has come. Here the statement in the Gospel is pertinent (John 7:30): “His hour had not yet come”; and again (John 16:21): “When a woman is in travail, she has sorrow, because her hour has come.” So the power of God comprehends all things in definite hours, so that they cannot be hindered by anyone. (Luther’s Works, v.15 p.49)