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Joy and Fear

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Maybe the man was schizo.  Or confused. When he wrote Ecclesiastes, he said:

Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God.  (Ecclesiastes 5:19)

And he also wrote:

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.  (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

 Which is it?  Should we enjoy God’s generous gifts or fear Him?  It’s both, but let me explain.  To “fear” means to treat someone with great reverence or respect, paying careful attention to his desires or commands.  Can you do that with God, while simultaneously enjoying His gifts?   Here is a fantasy illustrating how to do both – fear and enjoy.

Let’s say my guitar hero, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, invites me to his home.  I’m in shocked disbelief and show up, quivering with excitement.  He welcomes me in, shows me around, and then we discuss guitar picking.  We jam a little and he teaches me a few of his trademark licks. Then, as I am about to leave, be asks if I would be willing to take his prize acoustic guitar and take care of it for him.  He said, “I want you to play it regularly, but there’s a few things you’ll need to be very careful about.” Perhaps you can imagine how astonished, delighted and thrilled I’d be for such an opportunity.  Stunned by his generosity.  And extremely careful to follow his instructions.  I would fearfully enjoy his gift until such time as he decided to take it back.  That’s what Ecclesiastes teaches should be out attitude toward God with respect to His gift of life.

Life and Death

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Everybody dies.  So, if death makes life seem pointless (see Vantage Advantage), how does adopting God’s way of seeing reality change the inevitable?  Putting it in blunt terms, how can we “receive life as a gift from a generous God,” if we know He will one day yank it back?  Isn’t that view of life just a crutch for those who can’t face the hard truth about dying?

It would be, except for this.  God made a promise about death in Scripture.

In that day he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth.  He will swallow up death forever! The Sovereign LORD will wipe away all tears. He will remove forever all insults and mockery against his land and people. The LORD has spoken!  (Isaiah 25:7-8)

Death seems certain when life is viewed “under the sun.” But for those who adopt God’s perspective, death will certainly be eliminated.  Oh yeah?  When will that happen, you ask?  It already has!  When Jesus was comforting His friend after the death of her brother,

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”  (John 11:25 -26)

It sounds too good to be true, a get out of death free card.  But, if you are struggling to accept what He said, consider this:

  • Jesus is universally regarded as at least the best man to have ever lived.
  • Would such a man lie to His good friend in her time of grief?  No way.

Another time, as He explained eternal life to His disciples, Jesus said He wasn’t lying:

“… If it were not so, I would have told you.”  (John 14:2b)

Here’s the deal:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.   (John 3:16-17)

Vantage Advantage

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You are  going to die, so what’s the point of living?  According to the guy who wrote Ecclesiastes, there is no point. Once you are dead, theres no difference between the wise person and the fool.  They wind up in the same condition and will both, eventually be forgotten.

Then I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.” For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die! So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.  (Ecclesiastes 2:15 -17)

But this hopeless outlook changes when we do not limit our perspective to only that which happens “under the sun.”  (See Part 2 for further explanation)  

If you look at a piece of stitchwork from the back side, it doesn’t make much sense – bunch of tangled, knotted yarn hanging down.  But if you look from above, you see a beautiful picture.  That’s the vantage point advantage.  When we look at our circumstances from God’s vantage point, seeing things as He does instead of merely from “under the sun,” life seems less hopeless and pointless.  We begin to see life as a gift from a generous God.  

This principle is stated and restated many times and ways throughout Ecclesiastes.  It’s a recurrent theme in all of scripture.  Without God, everything looks pointless because we die.  But when we are reverently mindful of God, the outlook changes.  So,

Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.  (Ecclesiastes 5:18 -19)

The Quest for Meaning – Part 3

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Being Elvis was not enough.  He needed more.  Why?  You might think singing for a living would be satisfying.  Throw in vast wealth, Graceland, being known as “the King” and worshiped around the world would pretty much cover all your needs.  But all that was not enough.  Why not?  Solomon (introduced in Part 1) never met Elvis (so far as we know…. wink, wink…) but he applied himself to figure it out.  There must be a reason we humans work so hard to achieve money, fame, power, pleasure, success – you name it – and when we do, we discover those things don’t satisfy.

He didn’t just read up on the topic; Solomon held his nose and cannon-balled into the quest.  But nothing he tried was enough.  Wisdom didn’t satisfy:

I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief  (Ecclesiastes 1:16-18)

Carnal pleasure didn’t satisfy.  His life that would have been the envy of Donald Trump, Hugh Hefner and Bill Gates:

1 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. 4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.  (Ecclesiastes 2:1-10)

And yet, none of that was enough:

11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.  (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

Why is it that none of these things we strive for pay off in a lasting, satisfying way?  You can read ahead in Ecclesiastes to discover what Solomon concluded.  Hint: One is the “D word,” the great equalizer that awaits us all.  The second thing is a matter of having the wrong perspective.  There is a solution.

See you next time…

The Quest for Meaning – Part 2

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There is no meaning of life.  That’s the opening assertion in the book of Ecclesiastes.  (If you haven’t read it start with, The Quest for Meaning – Part 1)

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”  (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

But who is “the Teacher” and what, exactly does he mean?

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 1:12-15)

Although the book is anonymous, most believe King Solomon is likely the author; certainly he was the “king over Israel in Jerusalem” who fits the best.  You may recall he asked God for, and was granted, extraordinary wisdom.  As King, he had the wealth, power and leisure to really pursue the answer to the meaning of life.

The word translated, meaningless, originally meant vapor or emptiness, something that makes no lasting difference, or something hard to grasp.  It’s a tough word to translate (some use the word, vanity, which is equally awkward) but his phrase, “a chasing after the wind” gives us a pretty clear feel for it.  Donovan sang, “I may as well try and catch the wind,” meaning, it’s utterly pointless.  But is life utterly pointless or meaningless?  Pay close attention to the words underlined above, “under the heavens” and “under the sun.”  He means, when observed from the perspective of mortals stuck here on earth…

…Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.  (Ecclesiastes 1:2b-11)

Our first reaction to such pessimism might be to suggest Prozac.  The man is clinically depressed.  We at least want to argue with a few of his conclusions.  But ponder what he said and your reaction to it.  Then, come back in a couple days.  To find meaning, we need a better vantage point.

The Quest for Meaning – Part 1

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Suppose extraterrestrials were sent to Earth to figure out what we are doing here.  What are we trying to accomplish?  What is the meaning of all this?  They blast through the cosmos, streak through our atmosphere and eventually set down…  at Disney World.  After carefully observing people riding hollow logs through water flumes, lining up to shake hands with a large, stuffed mouse, and listening to “It’s a Small World After All” for the umpteenth time, they might be a bit confused about the meaning of life, here on Earth.  But what if they put down in Syria?  At Google headquarters?  Or Congress?  It would be pretty tough, as an extraterrestrial, to figure it out.

But that is what we are!  Where were you before you were born?  Wherever it was, it wasn’t here. Did you ask to come here or just sort of show up?  Why?  After you began to figure out about crying, and what your hands and feet could do, eventually your questions became more sophisticated.  But in large measure, your questions were essentially, “What’s going on here?  Why am I here, anyway?  What’s the meaning of all this?”  At first, you expect your parents and teachers to give you the answers.  Soon enough, it becomes apparent that they, like you, just showed up here, too.  And are still looking for the answers.

There’s a great book about one man’s quest for the answers.  Not just any man but a guy with all the intellectual resources, political power, and finances to give it a real go.  He wrote the book, Ecclesiastes, in the Bible.  The next several posts will be spent rooting around in some of his conclusions.  It would be good, before we begin, for you to read through this short book to get your own feel for it.  It is one of the more troubling books in the Bible, one which has had a wide variety of interpretations.  You can add your own to the pile.

Spoiler alert:  Our expert concludes:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

Teaser:  He doesn’t leave it there…

Check it out and then come back here in a couple days.

For Men Only

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File this under “Things I Wish I Had Known.”  I wish I had understood what this meant when I was first married:

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  (Ephesians 5:25-28)

I’ve heard sermons on how Jesus “gave Himself up for” the church and how husbands should adopt that attitude, but never one that continues on to explain how the “to make her holy, cleansing her…” and “…to present her to Himself …  holy and blameless” pertains to marriage.  What’s that all about?  I wish I had someone sit me down as a young man and explain all that in an understandable way.

Let’s start with this:  When you hire a babysitter, your deepest hope is that he or she will take care of your child with all the love and care you would.  You entrust your child into the sitter’s care.  When you enter into marriage, God entrusts you with the love and care of His precious daughter.  And she has been brought up in a world that is awash in distorted ideas about what it means to be a woman.  Even if she is not one of the one-in-seven girls who is sexually abused as a child, she has been bombarded with destructive lies about what makes a woman attractive and valuable.   Part of a husband’s role and responsibility is to treat his wife with honor and respect, protecting her and gently cleansing away those twisted attitudes.  To do so involves some “giving himself up.”  But the end result is marriage with a real woman, who knows her full value, instead of one who desperately tries to measure up to unrealistic “performance” standards.

As we eventually discovered, the payoff is worth it.

28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  (Ephesians 5:28)

 

Why God Won’t Listen

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Don’t bother praying for those people; it won’t do any good.  That’s what God said!  He said, it’s a waste of time to pray for them because I’m not going to listen and I won’t help them.  Really?  Who was He talking about?  ISIS?  Babylon?  Nope.  He was talking about His own, Chosen People.  He’d had enough.  Here it is, straight out of the Bible:

16 “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.  (Jeremiah 7:16)

Obviously His own people had done something very offensive to lead to that attitude from the same God Who rescued them from slavery, provided them a land “flowing with milk and honey,” and protected them from their hostile neighbors.  What had they done that was so bad?

17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.  (Jeremiah 7:17-18)

Today, this same evil masquerades as religious tolerance.  “All gods are the same; all religions are equally valid.”  “I won’t teach my children about God because I want them to choose which god to worship – if any.”  Go far enough down that road and you can forget about praying.  The real God won’t be listening.

But, in case this sounds to you as though God has an ego problem, consider, when He brought His people out of slavery, the first thing He taught them was this:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.  (Exodus 20:2-3)

His motivation was not for His own fame or esteem but for their well being.  Here’s the rest of what He said to Jeremiah:

22 For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you.  (Jeremiah 7:22-23)

Laced through all the tough, “don’t bother praying” passages in this prophecy, is the invitation and plea for His people to turn back and be restored.  God isn’t being cruel.  He alone is God.  He knows what works and what does not.

Three Little Words

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Christians are losers.  That’s what I used to think.  Uptight, repressed people, afraid to have fun.  So when my brother tried to tell me about Jesus, my responses were laced with sarcasm and scorn.  Maybe you can relate – either to my attitude or to how my brother must have felt.  If so, spend a moment or two considering an exchange between a man who had just met Jesus and his friend:

45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”  (John 1:45-46)

You’ve seen those signs that proudly announce that this town is the birthplace of some famous person?  Nazareth apparently didn’t have one of those.  But I suppose Nathanael’s snippy response was about more than that.  I suspect at some point Nathanael had been burned by believing something that turned out to be a hoax.  He may well have thrown out that sarcastic remark as a way of defending himself against being fooled again.  That would have been why I said it.  No matter why he said it, it probably put Philip off.  He might have been tempted to say, “Well, just forget it; you’re probably right.”

But he didn’t.  His response was elegant in it’s simplicity and effectiveness.  He said, “Come and see.”  Check Him out for yourself.  No need to try to prove it to his friend.  All he needed to do was simply invite his friend to come, to come and see.  I’m going to have to remember that.  There have been many times when my response to a sarcastic doubter was to try and prove Who Jesus is.  Perhaps you know that’s a response that rarely works and usually left me feeling frustrated and inadequate.  Philip intuitively knew Jesus could do His own proving, that he, Philip, didn’t need to do that part.  His role was to simply invite his friend.

“Come and see.”

Not so “Meek and Mild”

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Jesus chased people out of the temple courts with a whip.  Why?  They were using the place to make money.  Another time, as He tipped over their tables and chased them away, He said:

“‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’  (Matthew 21:13)

If those guys had been paying attention to God’s Word, they’d have known better. Jesus was quoting from a complaint by God written several hundred years earlier.  Here’s the first half of what Jeremiah wrote:

Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?   (Jeremiah 7:11a)

Religious shysters were nothing new in Jesus’ day.  They are still at it today.  A quick Google search, using “pastor” and “swindling” will give you 401,000 hits!  Apparently those crooks aren’t paying attention either.  Instead of shaking down the flock they’d be shaking in their boots.  Here’s the rest of what God said:

Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.  ( Jeremiah 7:11)

God wasn’t kidding…