Ecclesiastes 7-8: Don't Worry-Be Happy

Most of us remember Bobby McFerrin and that ridiculously catchy song, "Don't Worry, Be Happy."  Oh, yes.  The whistle.  The rhythm.  The melody.  If you've clicked on the link, you're hearing it now, and it'll be in your head all day long.  I'll probably be humming this song as I listen to the sermon this morning in church.

I thought of this song as I read through Ecclesiastes 7 this morning.

Solomon writes, "When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.  Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future."  

When times are good, be happy.  When times are not so good, you might as well be happy then too.  God is still God.  No matter what's going on, God is still good.  He's working things out for His good, for the good of the kingdom of God.  

It's not about you.

The thing is, when times are good, we tend to get a little self-righteous.  I'm financially successful because God has blessed me.  Because I've serve him well.  Because I've made good decisions.  Whatever.

I remember listening to a conversation back in 2006.  My friends were talking about how much their houses were worth and how God had provided for their retirement.  How they had made really good investment choices and were basically set for life.  (They each owned more than one house.)

And then the real estate market crashed and it didn't look so good for their futures.  

When all three of my kids attended church every weekend and did all the things "good Christian kids" are supposed to do, I thought Duane and I were amazing parents.  It was our wisdom, I assumed, our commitment to discipline and home schooling.  They would serve God wholeheartedly forever and ever.  

And then our oldest crashed.  Big time.  

I recently heard about someone who was leaving the church.  I'm okay with that.  Newbreak isn't the only place to worship.  Except that this person wasn't just leaving Newbreak, but was leaving God.  

Times were tough, and the question that stood out was:  Where is God in all this? 

We think God's present when things go well, and we think he has abandoned us when things don't go well.  

But it doesn't work that way.  Solomon says, "Since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come?"  

I think of so many Scriptures passages as I write this: 

In Romans 5:3-5, Paul admonishes us to rejoice in our sufferings because as we walk through them, God produces perseverance and character in our lives.  Which brings about hope in Christ--who is our only hope.

James 1:2 tells us to consider it pure joy when we experience trials of many kind.  

1 Peter 1:6-7 tells us to rejoice in our salvation in spite of the trials around us.  Because our salvation is far more valuable than anything else in our lives.  

Three different writers.  The same message.  Suffering produces beauty in our lives.  

And so where is God in this?  When we look directly at him, focusing on his love, on his character, we see him in the pain of our lives.  

The writer of Hebrews tells us to set our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of our lives.   After all, Jesus suffered to the point of death, something none of us reading this passage have yet done.  His suffering was for us.  

And so, the writer concludes, we should "endure hardship as discipline" because God is strengthening us for his purposes.  

Whew.  

It does seem that I've traveled quite a ways from Ecclesiastes, but maybe not.  

When times are good, be happy.  

When times are bad, don't worry.  Look into the face of Jesus, see his love, his sacrifice.  Remember, he will do something incredibly valuable in your life if you will let him.

Ecclesiastes 6: Too Many Words

I knew exactly what I wanted to write about when I woke up this morning.  And then I went back to the Bible and found a new passage.  This time Solomon's really stepping on my toes.

In chapter 6, verse 11, he writes, "The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?"

Whoa.  Does he know what I do with my life?  

I talk.

I read.

I study.

I write.

Mostly I use words.  

And yet, there is meaning that extends beyond words, meaning that can't be contained by mere words. 

Think about love.  The more I write about it, the more I limit it's scope.  Love is expansive.  We can describe it, but we can't fully define it.  We need to experience it.  

And even then, there's more.  

If I limit the meaning of love to what I can say about it, it's not everything it can be.  

And God.  We can say a lot about Him, but there's always more to say.  I can try to describe his glory, but his glory is beyond description.  I can tell stories of what he's done, but there will always be more stories, and he reveals himself not only through what he's done in the past, but what he's doing right now and what he will do in the future.  

He's beyond understanding, beyond definition, beyond words.  

I can't limit him to what I can say about him.  I must experience his presence.  See him work in my life.  See him work in the lives of people around me. 

I know him through worship as much as I know him through what I read.

I know him through nature as much as through what I write.  

I know him through his people.  

Okay.  That's already too many words.

Ecclesiastes 4-5: Two Are Better Than One

I love being married.  Obviously no one is perfect, but Duane's pretty awesome.  And we're good together.  After 32 years of marriage, we've learned to trust each other.  We've become a team and learned to depend on each other.  Duane is good at things I don't do well, and I'm good at things he doesn't do well.  

Solomon spends a lot of time describing meaningless situations in the first few chapters of Ecclesiastes, and in chapter 4, he says he saw a man who was all alone.  The man didn't have any sons or brothers.  I want to add that apparently he didn't have a wife or good friends either, but that's totally my addition.  

So essentially, he had nothing to do except work and he earned a lot of money.  Of course, no matter how much earned, it really wasn't enough.  And he wasn't happy because he was all alone.  His life was meaningless.

So Solomon writes:

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.  If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.  But how can one keep warm alone?  Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.  

Duane and I used to have a plaque with a portion of this passage inscribed on it.  Someone made it for us and gave it to us as a wedding gift.  Solomon wasn't talking about marriage in this passage, of course, but it applies.  When I'm down, Duane comforts me, and when Duane is struggling, I comfort him.  When I fear failure, Duane encourages me, and when he's uncertain about trying something new, he knows I believe in him.  We're better together than we are apart.

This passage isn't about marriage.  Solomon never says anything about women in this section.  And God does not exclude single men and women from lives of significance.

This passage is about living in community.  It's about making a difference when we join together with other people, focused on the same purpose.  We take care of each other.  We defend each other.   A group of three isn't easily broken.

And yet, it's not always that easy.  That's why Paul writes,

"If you have any encouragement from being united in Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your interests, but also to the interests of others."  (Philippians 2:1-4)

If we want to live lives of significance, full of meaning, we need other people.  Just as Duane and I are better together, just as he can do things I can't do, and visa versa, we have other people in our life that can do things neither one of us can do.  Together, as one body, we can do things that we can't do alone.

And so we need to take care of each other.  Forgive each other.  Love each other.  We need to humble ourselves and treat each other as better than ourselves.  Even Jesus humbled himself to the point of dying for our sin.

Yes, two are better than one, and a cord of three strands isn't easily broken.  I love Duane, and I guard my relationship with him.  But that relationship alone isn't enough.  I have learned, and I am still learning, that I need other people.  I need to guard those relationships like I guard my relationship with Duane, and I need to make opportunities to develop and strengthen those relationships.

I'm not okay with "meaningless."  

Seasons: How to Live a Life That's Not Meaningless

My friend Jill's mom died last week, and Duane and I attended the funeral yesterday afternoon.  We're getting older; our parents are getting older.  It's a strange thing because we don't actually feel older, and we don't think our parents are getting older either. We don't think they will die, and yet both Duane and I lost our fathers about three years ago.  

It's part of life.  

Solomon put it this way:  There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die . . . 

And so we gathered together to say goodbye to a woman I've never met.  A woman who lived and loved, who laughed and sang and cried, who celebrated life and experienced disappointments.  

I think it says a lot about Jill's mom that Jill visited her nearly every day in the nursing home, even the days her mom didn't really know she was there.  

Jill's mom and dad moved to San Diego in 1976, when they were about 50 years old.  Shortly before, two sons became "Jesus people," and shortly after that Jill's mom and dad began their own relationship with Christ.  Jill was next, and finally the last daughter gave her life to Christ.  

Today all four children and their children serve God. One son is a pastor.  A grandson serves with his guitar and his voice.  Jill's dad is the chaplain in the nursing home where his wife lived.  In one way or another, they all give their lives away.  

Jill is one of those people I can always count on to pray for me.  She never judges.  She can see when I'm sad or disappointed or struggling.  And she stops to ask.  And then she prays for me right away.  She encourages. She loves unconditionally.  She serves faithfully.  She never complains.  

Once I asked Jill why she went to see her mom everyday.  I knew she was exhausted, working all day long, leading two life groups with her husband, and encouraging multiple young wives.  She told me her mother had encouraged her so much growing up that she wanted to give back. 

Solomon claims that life is meaningless, but I don't think anyone who knew Jill's mom would say that her life lacked meaning.  

And so I put forth this suggestion:  Our lives gain significance and meaning when we give them away in the name of Jesus.  

Jesus put it this way:  "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" (Luke 9:23:25)

The legacy of Jill's mom continues, through the people whose lives she touched.  And now she spends her days with Jesus.  

None of us will live forever.  We're only here for a season, and we want our season to matter.  We can chase after the wind, as Solomon says, trying to find something that matters for eternity, or we can give our lives away.

Back to From Garden to City: Ecclesiastes 1-3

I started the year intending to make it through the entire Bible using Mark Batterson's From Garden to City reading plan.  It seemed like a good plan at the time.  But eventually I got bored and reading through the Old Testament prophets just dried me up spiritually.  And so I've sort of drifted from passage to passage without any direction.  And I'm going to confess that I haven't read the Bible every day.

It's a funny thing.  Or maybe not funny.  The more time I spend in God's Word, the closer I feel to God.  Because I'm reading/listening to his voice speak to me through the Bible, I hear his voice in my daily life.  And I remember what I'm reading.  And what I'm reading gets clearer to me.  And when it's clear, and when I'm thinking about what God's saying to me, I fall deeper in love with God and worship him as I go about my day.

Still, I struggle with reading plans because they don't really allow me to read what I want to read.  Following a plan keeps me in God's Word, but sometimes those passages in the plan just don't really speak to me.  And yet, if I don't have some kind of plan, I tend to read the same things over and over and skip passages that I'm not interested in.  I really do believe that the entire Bible is valuable, and so essentially I'm limiting God by not reading his entire word.

So I'm back to From Garden to City.  Sort of.  They started with James in October.  I like James so I started with that.  The next book was Ecclesiastes.  Followed by Leviticus.  And then Hebrews.  I love Hebrews and  I'm not a huge fan of Ecclesiastes or Leviticus so I thought about skipping ahead to Hebrews.  Maybe it's the legalist in me, or maybe it's the Holy Spirit, but I didn't feel good about that.  It felt like cheating.  (I kind of think this is the rule follower in me.)

And so here I am.  I've read Ecclesiastes 1-3, and it's not terribly inspiring.  In fact, it's pretty depressing.  Solomon, the wisest man in the world, examines life and concludes, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless."

We go through life.  We work hard and earn money and success.  Or we work hard and still don't have much.  We struggle with relationships.  We party.  We indulge ourselves in whatever we want.  Or we follow the rules.  And save our money.  And then we die.  But the earth keeps turning, the rivers keep flowing, and the sun rises and sets.  Just like it did before we were born.

And if we seek out wisdom, if we examine what is known and is not yet known, we learn that the more we know, the more we realize we don't know.  And that even if we knew it, it wouldn't change anything.  In fact, if we look too closely at what we've learned, we realize it's all pretty worthless.  We look at things one way now, and think the people who came before us were pretty foolish.  In a few years, ideas will shift, and those future people will think we're foolish.

Solomon was the first postmodernist.  Or maybe not because he does ask, "Is there anything of which one can say, 'Look! This is something new'?" As a result, Solomon comes to the only conclusion possible and he states, "So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me."

I'm going to just put myself out there and say that sometimes studying rhetoric is hard.  We look so closely at what people say and how they use words to manipulate points of view, and I start to wonder, "What's real?"
I ask, "Does anything matter?"

I desperately need God's Word to keep me grounded in some sort of truth, and yet sometimes I ask, "Is anything true? Do I only believe because I was raised this way?" And these kinds of thoughts are exactly why I don't like the book of Ecclesiastes.  I've been thinking this stuff since high school, and I prefer not to ask these questions.

And yet failure to openly ask the questions kept me from seeking God and his Truth.  You note I use a capital "T" here. When I began asking the questions, I began finding God. And by finding God, I don't mean that I learned a lot of stuff about him.  I mean that I began hearing his voice, through the words in the Bible and in other ways too.  At first I thought I was talking to myself.  But gradually I am learning to differentiate between my thoughts and God's thoughts.

And no, I don't think I'm crazy.

But back to Solomon and his search for meaning.  He tried a lot of things, and he never did find meaning, not in wisdom and not in indulgence and not really even in work, although he does state that if we find satisfaction in our work, we are indeed blessed.

We're like animals, according to Solomon. Nothing more.  Nothing less.
And yet, we do search for meaning.  We have eternity in our hearts, according to Solomon (3:11), and so we keep chasing after that which we "cannot fathom."

We desire Truth and Meaning and Significance.  And we just can't quite find it.
Tomorrow chapters 4 and 5.

James: Mirrors

It seems my friend Val and I have been prompting each other to think about Scripture.  Always a good thing.  Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."  Val and I are both women, but you get the idea.

After I wrote about faith without works being dead, Val wrote from James 1:22-25.  I'm going to paraphrase:

Don't just listen to the words from the Bible.  And don't just read them.  Put the words into practice.  Otherwise you're like a woman who looks at her face in the mirror and then immediately forgets what she looks like.  

That totally resonates with me.  I picture myself a certain way.  In that image, I'm about 35 so there aren't any wrinkles.  In those days I hardly ever wore makeup--except for mascara.  My hair is much blonder than it is now.  I weigh about 15 pounds less than what the scale says now.

And then I look in the mirror and the image is a little disconcerting.  I see a woman who is several years older than the picture I have in my mind, and she weighs more than I'm comfortable with.   She needs a haircut, but is too lazy or too cheap or too busy to go get one.  I see spots and wrinkles.  I think, "She needs to start eating better.  She needs to exercise.  She needs to get her hair cut.  Maybe colored."

And then I walk away, and I forget all of that.  I don't eat better.  I don't exercise.  I don't call and make an appointment to get my hair cut.  And if I bothered to put on lipstick before I left the mirror, I don't reapply even though I know it's worn off.

In the same way, when we hear a sermon or participate in a deep discussion in our Life Groups, when we encounter God's presence in worship, when we read God's Word, the Holy Spirit often reveals things about ourselves that we aren't comfortable with. Perhaps he convicts us of sin.  Maybe spending too much.  Or watching too much T.V.  Or lack of forgiveness.  Or being unkind or unloving.

And we confess our sin.  We beg forgiveness, and we walk away, ready to change. But then we forget.  And we don't change.  Kind of like the way I always mean to exercise, but I don't.  If I could see the image in the mirror all the time, I would definitely have motivation to change!

Sometimes the fact that I know I've failed to exercise or eat right means I don't WANT to look into the mirror.  At that point, even more things don't get taken care of.  Maybe I don't pluck my eyebrows.  Or take my makeup off at night.  Make sure my clothes look okay.  You get the idea--if I never look into the mirror because I don't like what I see, I don't take care of things that need taken care of.

And so I want to take this metaphor back to the passage.  James 1:24 tells us that we will be blessed when we look intently into God's perfect law (the Bible) that gives freedom and also put the ideas into practice.  The more time we spend in God's Word, the more God's Spirit equips us to live what we see there.

Val wrote this:
I need God to direct me.  I need the Holy Spirit to guide me and convict me.  I need his word to be my sword.  Think of a jungle.  What defensive weapon is most needed?  A machete to create a path.  You see, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, is not only useful against spiritual and earthly foes; it can be used to make our path straight and visible!  We cannot walk the path God has put before us on this jungle without the sword to clear the path.  In order to even see what direction we should go, we need that sword!  The word of God is alive and it will keep us alive, but we need to wield that sword and follow the path it creates.  We have not yet arrived at our destination. We are still on a journey, a blessed journey. 


Back to the mirror analogy.  I mentioned that sometimes I don't even want to look into the mirror. I  don't always like what I see there.  But if I don't, I actually end up looking pretty awful.  


We might want to avoid spending time in God's Word precisely because it makes us feel bad about the way we look spiritually, but it's important to remember Romans 8:1.  There is no condemnation in Christ.  God's Word isn't there to condemn us, but to empower us.  There is freedom in God's Word.  There is freedom when we allow him to equip us and give us strength.  When we begin to put the words into practice.  


Okay.  I could write on the book of James for another week, but it's time to move on.  

James 2-3: Faith and Works and Wisdom

Reading:  James 1-4

When I was a kid, I memorized Ephesians 2:8-9. 

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

I get it.  Sort of.  There is no checkoff list that saves us.  No formula that gives us entry into God's family.  No algorithm for receiving forgiveness of sins.  

But then we read all those verses about fruit.  The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness . . .
And John 15 tells us that if we don't bear fruit, we'll be chopped off and thrown into the fire.  (Don't you love metaphors?)

To complicate matters even more, James places enormous importance on what someone does.  In James 1:26-27, he writes that if anyone thinks he's religious, but he doesn't watch what comes out of his mouth, his religion is worthless.

And I know we like to say that Christianity isn't a religion--it's a relationship, so let's revise the statement a little bit.  If anyone thinks he (or she) has an intimate relationship with God, but his (or her) words are cruel/rude/gossipy, maybe that relationship isn't as close as he (or she) thinks.

And then James gets even tougher.  He writes, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

I don't even know what to do what that.  I think I get the "being polluted" part, but maybe not.  We can't really see air pollution most of the time, and we can't really tell if water is safe to drink until we actually drink it and get sick--or not.  So I think there may be pollution in my life that I'm not even aware of.  That's sort of how it goes.

And as for caring for orphans and widows in their distress, I don't know very many of those.

James shifts gears, talks about the way we treat people, and then asks, "What good is it if a man claims to have faith, but has no deeds?"

What if he (or she) talks about God's love, but doesn't extend mercy--the kind that includes actions?
According to James, that person's faith is essentially worthless.
In James 2:17 and 26, he says that it's dead.

Hebrews 11 tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for.  It's the evidence of things we can't see.  Faith is not an intangible belief.  When we have faith, real faith, it changes us.  It changes the way we think and the way we respond to situations.  It changes what we do.

When we have faith, real faith, God's Spirit lives inside of us, and our lives produce fruit.  We live differently.  We care about different things.

Yes, it is possible to do good things without faith.  But James claims that it's not possible to have faith unless we also do good things.  The doing flows out of the faith.

Like fruit.

Honestly, I struggle with this a little bit.  I spent so much of my life trying to be good and do good things, and I had no faith.  My good things were worthless on their own.

I have spent a lot of time more recently focusing on "being."  Which is good.  But at some point, the being should lead to doing.  Should lead to active mercy.  And love.

As usual, I end without definitive answers to the questions I raise.  I'm okay with that.  Most of life has more questions than answers.