ECCLESIASTES = MEANING THROUGH APPLYING WISDOM

My daily Bible readying just took me thru the book of Ecclesiastes, a journey that demands a lot of reflection to make sense. It took Solomon a life time of reflecting to come to his conclusions in the book. The view of life expressed in Ecclesiastes is clearly through experienced eyes. This time as I read the sometimes contradictory passages, I found myself more comfortable than before. As a young man I remember thinking that Solomon had become a cynic in his old age – a man ready to give up and die. Now as an old man myself, I am starting to get it. Life is short. God wants us to enjoy it and enjoy Him. But he wants us to be careful because there are consequences. For eleven chapters “the teacher” outlines the consequences of pursuing pleasure even while he says to enjoy life. But in chapter twelve he tells us to remember the Creator while we are young with great ambition. Enjoy life by enjoying God and when you get old you will not be the cynic – that crabby old person who wonders if they wasted their life and blames it on God. In the concluding advice the teacher sums it all up. “The words of the wise are painful but helpful”. In essence, aligning your life with God’s character and God’s will may mean sacrifice, avoiding temptations and behaviors that can be destructive to us and those around us. Enjoying God often means sacrifice that leads to adventure and experiences we could never have following the vices described in Ecclesiastes. So while everything is ultimately meaningless from a temporal perspective. Meaning can be found in applying the wisdom of Scripture in our daily lives.