I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
Today I begin Ecclesiastes, which are the words of “the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem.” The Teacher concludes that everything is meaningless. He tried pursuing pleasure and found it meaningless. He describes the various ways that he tried to pursue pleasure. He got drunk repeatedly and embraced the lifestyle of a Sybarite. He gathered everything a man could desire. He tried hard work and the pleasure that came from that. He found it all to be meaningless. He declares that there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and find satisfaction in hard work. These pleasures come from God. He asks, “Can we truly have pleasure apart from God?” I think that the answer to that is, “No.”
I am going to take a slight detour here because what comes next is a passage that has special meaning to me:
a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.
I have always liked this passage as long as I can remember. However, my wife and I put this on bookmarks that we gave out as wedding favors. The reason we did that was because the year we got married had been a tough one for her family. It started that spring. Her father was diagnosed with cancer right about the same time that I had decided that she was the one God wished me to marry (she had made up her mind about me several years earlier, but I always have been a little slow on the uptake). The prognosis did not look good. I asked her to marry me on Mothers’ Day because I wanted to make sure that he knew I would be there for his daughter and her mother. Shortly after that, he entered hospice and he died that summer. Later that same year, my wife’s maternal grandmother died. These two occasions brought her family together. We wondered if it was appropriate to go forward with our wedding in the fall. Everyone assured us that not only was it appropriate, but the family would appreciate an opportunity to gather for a joyous occasion after so much grief. We both felt that this made the lines “A time to cry and a time to laugh, A time to grieve and a time to dance,” the perfect summation about the feelings at our wedding.
I always struggle with Ecclesiastes. So much of it is spent on discussing the futility of life. Yet, I notice there is one thing that the author of this passage did not pursue in his search for meaning (or, at least, that he does not speak of in this section). He does not speak of seeking to find meaning through serving God and helping his fellow-man. The futility that he speaks of here is why I am not an atheist. The thought that this finite world that will come to an end some day is all that there is was more than I could bear.
Paul expresses his desire that we not only accept God’s grace, but allow it to change us. Paul speaks of how God said that at the right time He would extend His salvation to us. That time is now. I beg of you, if you are reading this and have not accepted God’s love for you through Jesus Christ, do so now. And if at some point in the past, you have done so, but have not felt the transformational power of the Holy Spirit, today is the day to seek it out. Further, I ask those of you who may be reading this who, like me, have felt the transformation of the Holy Spirit to once more seek out those aspects of your life that need to be further transformed into the likeness if Christ and ask the Spirit for that transformation. I have many such areas and I ask God to send His Spirit with power to transform them. So that I may say with Paul that I live in such a way that no one will stumble because of me. I know that I have not always lived in such a manner and I ask God’s forgiveness for those whom I have proved a stumbling block in the past.
This psalm is such a powerful song. There have been many songs written based on it and several of them are quite powerful. One of those songs was set to the same music that “America the Beautiful” was later set to. One of my favorites has the following lyrics:
be still and know that I am God,
be still and know that I am God.
I am the Lord that healeth thee,
I am the Lord that healeth thee,
I am the Lord that healeth thee.
In thee, O Lord, I put my trust,
In thee, O Lord, I put my trust,
In thee, O Lord, I put my trust.
I have found the advice of this psalm to be of great value. When all around me seems to be coming apart, it really helps me to just be still and remember that He is God. He is always ready to help in times of trouble, even when it seems that the mountains are crumbling into the sea around me.
Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!
…
“Be still, and know that I am God!
I will be honored by every nation.
I will be honored throughout the world.”
I will not fear when disaster strikes because God is my refuge. Many times my calmness in the face of troubles is taken as confidence in my ability to solve the problems, but such is not the case. My calmness in the face of troubles is because I know that God is in control and things will work out according to His plans.
This proverb reminds us that children have a tendency to do foolish things. Sometimes the only way to teach them to not do foolish and dangerous things is by imposing physical discipline.