For the past couple of weeks I have been reading Ecclesiastes, and for the first time in my life it has had the opposite effect on me. Normally it leaves me with a feeling of meaninglessness...I mean the word is used endlessly throughout!
Nah, THIS time I have this overwhelming PEACE! Never expected THAT from the book about how pointless everything is...
Being married kind of puts an emphasis on financial security, making those "ends" meet. The cost = many hours away from the one I love and many disheartened days of attempting to encourage him as he's overworked, manipulated, and grossly underpaid...I sometimes forget. I forget that God knows what's going on in a world where so many things don't seem to add up.
Solomon was the wisest man and yet he knew that even the wise die like the foolish. Sometimes the wisest of all get the shaft, while the fools live on forever. All that is meaningless...
Solomon was the richest person alive, and had every kind of pleasure he could desire, yet he still did not find satisfaction in this.
A man can work his whole life saving and striving to make a life for himself, and all that can be gone in an instant. Or even if it stays around for a while, that man still dies, and never reaps the reward of his labor. Some man he never knew could be the one who enjoys all of his hard work. So working and striving are meaningless...
We camped in San Simeon this weekend and went to tour the great Hearst Castle. The place was just immense! It had tapestries, choir chairs, imported fireplaces, statues, intricate ceilings, a movie theatre, an enormous outdoor pool, and a smaller but still vastly enormous indoor pool with gold inlaid tiles surrounding it. The upkeep was just ridiculous. They said that to clean (not even to restore) the ceiling in one room it would cost millions of dollars.
And get this. He owed so many back taxes when he died that the whole estate had to be "donated" to cover the cost.
What a legacy after a lifetime of hard toiling, dreaming, and collecting.
He did not take any of that with him. He died just like any other Shmoe...Meaningless.
In the end, being the wisest man in the world, all Solomon could muster with his wisdom is: "No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover it's meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it."
So what...?
"Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always annoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life God has given you under the sun-all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." Ecc 9:7-10
"Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." Ecc 12:13b
I think so many times we can become so caught up in "figuring it all out," finding the meaning to all that surrounds us. We catagorize, diagnose, and try to box it all up with a pretty bow that says "well bad things happen to good people because [insert philosophy here]"...and so on.
Newsflash: Life's not always pretty! If you've lived longer than a couple of minutes you might have noticed that. In fact life can be downright like a pile of human diarhhea sometimes. And it gets on you, and it gets on me, and on everyone we interact with. So messy! And most times it comes so fast we don't have time to get help from a shrink.
So what can we do??
Rely on God, who sees all, and knows all.
A lot of times I think about how confusing this world is, and I search and strive for meaning and consistency and a reason for every rhyme...or is it rhyme for every reason?...and I think: maybe God made it confusing just to confuse us. Maybe he doesn't want us to know everything, because maybe...just maybe...he wants us to rely on Him, and to trust in what we KNOW about HIS character. Maybe we'll be a little more centered if we stand on a firm Foundation.
I mean we DO know that He is trustworthy.
We know He is for us, and that He loves us deeper than we could possibly imagine.
We know that He is preparing a Home for us that will put all homes to shame.
We know that He is working everything together for His purpose. And that His purpose is for us to know Him and for us to become more and more like Him through the refining process leading to Holiness.
...I could go on and on.
And maybe I should.
Maybe I should rest in the peace that comes from knowing that even though I don't have it all figured out, I am deeply loved and protected by the One who does!
And so I will do the best with what I have, and walk in the joy and gladness that comes from being grateful for the ones I have around me.
And for the One who gave everything to know me.
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