Ecclesiastes 2:1-10 The Message
2 1-3 I said to myself, “Let’s go for it—experiment with pleasure, have a good time!” But there was nothing to it, nothing but smoke.
What do I think of the fun-filled life? Insane! Inane!
My verdict on the pursuit of happiness? Who needs it?
With the help of a bottle of wine
and all the wisdom I could muster,
I tried my level best
to penetrate the absurdity of life.
I wanted to get a handle on anything useful we mortals might do
during the years we spend on this earth.
I Never Said No to Myself
4-8 Oh, I did great things:
built houses,
planted vineyards,
designed gardens and parks
and planted a variety of fruit trees in them,
made pools of water
to irrigate the groves of trees.
I bought slaves, male and female,
who had children, giving me even more slaves;
then I acquired large herds and flocks,
larger than any before me in Jerusalem.
I piled up silver and gold,
loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
and—most exquisite of all pleasures—
voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I had wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, and I held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Well, truth be told, I am writing this the bulk of this devotional the night prior to my actually posting it because tomorrow morning very early, the wife has a vender affair at a distant Methodist Church – about 45 minutes from our home.
My wife makes jewelry of all kinds and literally spends hours on end in her craft room, sitting at her table putting together beads of all shapes, sizes and colors.
For us, it is that time of the year when the wife gets extraordinarily busy doing craft shows at churches, wherever it is she can get a couple of tables to set up.
For the last several years now, fall is the season where she typically gets busy with her planning, what beads she will buy, what people might be interested in.
All different kinds of themes come out of her spirit and my wife is in her own element – making colorful gifts for the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.
Me, my time is usually spent doing nothing like that – I am not the crafty one, I am not the one who can sit for hours on end finding fulfillment from such stuff.
I really have no hobbies at all and generally spend my time enjoying her brag about her efforts which she’ll frequently brings out to me in my living room.
Of, course, right now, I am rehabilitating from my Triple Bypass Open Heart Surgery this past July 17, so my time is spent walking and being in rest mode.
She has all the fun with her crafting because that is where God has gifted her.
Me, my time is spent doing no hobbies in particular except the Word of God in prayer and discernment in thinking, reading, studying writing this daily blog.
How in this season of Thanksgiving and Christmas my wife’s interests in her crafting and vender affairs becomes her ministry and mission to her church.
My ministry and mission to the church is my (as much as possible) daily blog which is literally read all over the globe – (Matthew 28:16-20, and Acts 1:8) as the Reverend has John Wesley famously said “that the whole world is my Parish.”
On my mind tonight are those pursuits of pleasure-my wife’s love of crafts, my single minded pursuit-my getting the Word of God out to the ends of the globe.
My apologies for a longer than usual blog entry – God’s Word will do that to me!
Ecclesiastes 2:1-3 The Message
2 1-3 I said to myself, “Let’s go for it—experiment with pleasure, have a good time!” But there was nothing to it, nothing but smoke.
What do I think of the fun-filled life? Insane! Inane!
My verdict on the pursuit of happiness? Who needs it?
With the help of a bottle of wine
and all the wisdom I could muster,
I tried my level best
to penetrate the absurdity of life.
I wanted to get a handle on anything useful we mortals might do
during the years we spend on this earth.
Ecclesiastes is an ancient book, its way with words are compellingly relevant.
Although it was written around 3,000 years ago, you might think that the author had all ten of his ancient fingers on the pulse of our contemporary life.
And indeed, as you read it through, you will find yourself being walked down a number of dead-end streets representing the common paths we often tread in our single minded search for all the roads that only lead to our own satisfaction.
One route through which we try to find personal meaning in life is education.
Experts constantly assert the problems of substance abuse, sexual abuse and misconduct, other societal ills can be solved if only people are better educated.
Yet experience shows us that mere information cannot in and of itself satisfy the needs of the heart, nor is it capable of taming the unruliness of the soul.
Judged by many yardsticks, Western nations are the best-educated in human history, but somehow they do not appear to be the happiest, and they may well be those that most thirst for traveling all roads leading to instant gratification.
So if education doesn’t satisfy us, we might turn down the pathway of pleasure.
We decide, like Solomon, to let only the good times roll.
At first, in our zeal for all things fun, we might find something resembling happiness—but we eventually discover the pleasure it brings is only fleeting.
It turns out to be a cyclical form of escapism, luring us into a make-believe, rose-colored, self-focused life that sounds great but is like a circle – empty.
Much of the world that encircles our livelihoods, surrounds us with pleasures is no different than a fowlers snare, set up to call, walk us, down dead-end streets.
Now, it would be a dreadful misunderstanding for any baptized Christian to think, believe, all of our Christianity is disinterested in education and pleasure.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
Yet the author of Ecclesiastes shows us that none of these pursuits will in and of themselves make any minimal sense of our lives, answer our deepest longings.
This is generally the sum total Christian life well lived for 300 days in the year.
Then we encounter the last sixty days, seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas, when God seems to hit a reset switch within us, only when we come to know the true and living God does the enjoyment of life’s blessings feed into lasting joy.
These dead-end streets do contain some hope, however—for Christ can break through, save us, drawing us onto the narrow path that leads to the good life. (Matthew 7:13-14 The Message).
Being and Doing
13-14 “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.
Maybe that’s exactly what needs to happen for us – God to hit our reset switch.
Or perhaps we’re tempted to resist the warning of Ecclesiastes and go down one of these “all or nothing all about me self gratification pleasure paths” instead of the road of selfless faithful obedience solely unto the Lord—or we are tempted to implicitly or explicitly encourage our loved ones to join us and go down them.
If the temptation to see education or enjoyment as the one thing you must have calls your name, remember this: one day you, I will stand before the throne of God, and you, I, will have to give an account – Which path will WE walk along?
Trusting In God through Every Fresh Start and Restart
Isaiah 43:16-21 The Message
16-21 This is what God says,
the God who builds a road right through the ocean,
who carves a path through pounding waves,
The God who summons horses and chariots and armies—
they lie down and then can’t get up;
they’re snuffed out like so many candles:
“Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,
rivers in the badlands.
Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’
—the coyotes and the buzzards—
Because I provided water in the desert,
rivers through the sunbaked earth,
Drinking water for the people I chose,
the people I made especially for myself,
a people custom-made to praise me.
Sifting through my wife’s beads, realizing that each had a special meaning with special prayers attached, the string she personally made for me I hung around the rear view mirror of my car touches my heart every time I see it, causes me to remember the other, freely swinging, joyfully, happily, from around her neck.
From a wife’s heart faithfully filled with all the good intentions I have come to know, love about her, came these special gifts to bless hearts all over the place.
God reminds us to have faith like a child securely grasping her mustard seeds .
There is something innocent and pure, yet true, captivating and convicting, about the way the faith of a child, of a whole fistful of mustard seeds, moves.
Inspired by the symbolism each of God’s carefully crafted creatures exudes, I randomly researched mustard seeds and researched the robin feeding on them.
Sitting on a lower branch of one of my trees last spring sat a pair of Robins.
Not just one day, but day after day.
I would try to quietly walk up beside their branch, new leaves growing wildly.
If she was not there already, or if my movements did not scare her, the robins would soon land faithfully on the branch, chirping with delight as if to greet me as an old friend.
The arrival of the robin traditionally symbolizes hope, renewal and rebirth.
It can also represent selflessness for a higher truth (or love), and some legend I read about suggests the robin received its flame red belly from a fire in which it was trying to protect Jesus. Even more, the spring arrival of the robin exudes new beginnings, life, is looked upon by many as a sign of fortune and good luck.
All this speculation aside, the Spirit moves in my heart whenever that robin tweets and walks along and among the branches of its young’s future home.
Of course, God can use the walk of a tiny robin along fresh spring branches to reassure us new hope, but the supernatural reassurance isn’t the robin’s doing.
It’s the solely the Lord, Jesus, promising never to leave us alone.
It’s God our Creator, it’s God our Father, making good on His promise that when we see His presence in Creation, we seek Him with all of our hearts, we will find Him – He will make Himself known in the most precious of ways.
“Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6).
God promised the Israelites He would lead them out of the wilderness, but it would be in a way very much different from the roadways and pathways they were familiar with, or knew to look for. “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way” (Isaiah 35:8).
The highway, the NIV Study Bible explains, is
“a road built up to make travel easier,” the Way of Holiness, “The way less travelled, set apart for those who are holy; only the redeemed could use it.”
This Old Testament reference to a road God’s people would have actually traveled to the temple reminds me of the way Jesus Christ has paved for us.
There is the choice of our walking the High Road.
There is the choice of our walking the Low Road.
There is the Level Road between the High Road and the Low Road.
Then there is the destination we all somehow arrive at hopefully the same time.
We have the choice to try Interchangeably walking on all three to get there first, at all costs, whatever means, ahead of everyone else – to get the winner’s prize
Crisscrossing one path to get to the other – then back and forth, up and down.
We inevitably lose ground, we have to laterally change directions, stay on track.
Lateral change requires us to reset our bearings, restart- restarting is hard.
Fresh starts do not always feel like a crisp fall day or an early spring rain that makes the beauty of flowers bloom and things come alive again – but it does.
John 14:1-7 The Message
The Road
14 1-4 “Don’t let this rattle you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”
5 Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”
6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
Christ made the ONLY way where there was no way.
Where there is no way.
In our wilderness moments, and seasons “This new thing effectively reverses the exodus.
Whereas the winds of God caused the sea to turn to dry land to save His people from the Egyptians, now He will make paths and streams in the desert to deliver His people,” to show His Children the Only eternal pathway to God the Father.
In these seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas, God will hit our reset button.
Re-starting can be a fresh start, but sometimes starting over isn’t the path we choose for ourselves.
There are times in life when God redirects our attention in a direction we did not plan to, and might not want to, obediently go – in those moments, it’s important to get quiet with the Lord, and ask Him to confirm His calling.
Hands joined together, my wife and I bowed our heads in the home we loved and gave it to the Lord all over again. “If it’s Your will …if You want us to go, God …we will go if You are in it …help us to know we are supposed to go.”
God is faithful to answer our questions, even our complaints, about the direction He is leading us to go.
When we excessively ask Him, “Are you sure?”
His response is not condemning, but convictive encouragement.
He will surely make clear the direction we are supposed to go.
But if we are too scared to take the next steps, He does not discount us.
His purpose for us does not fade. Whatever God’s will is …will be for us both.
Re-start can also be a fresh start.
Even if the catapult of change catches us off guard, often times we can look back after we’ve taken faithful steps of obedience to see His hand relieving us from a burden we were not meant to bear, or could not see coming.
Looking back over a life lived within the love of Christ Jesus will surely produce a trail of His faithfulness.
Discernment is defined as an acuteness of judgement and understanding.
“I am your servant,” King David wrote, “give me discernment that I may understand your statutes” (Psalm 119:125).
David was searching and seeking God to act wisely.
God called David a man after His own heart. David’s heart was consumed by His relationship with the Lord. The Voice paraphrase of Psalm 119:125 reads:
“I am Your servant; impart to me understanding so that I may fully grasp the depths of Your statutes.”
This verse is part of a Prayer for Vindication.
David was praying for God to come to his defense, and we know God was faithful to defend David many times throughout his life.
“Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law,” David prayed (Psalm 119:18).
The root of the Hebrew word for discernment or understanding means to “understand, be able, deal wisely, consider, pay attention to, regard, notice, discern, perceive, or inquire.”
David prayed for the ability to perceive God’s direction for his life.
When we pray for the will and favor of God in our lives, He is faithful to deliver.
Our Father in heaven wants us to succeed.
He sent His Son to save us in the greatest act of love of all time (John 3:16).
His heart breaks with us when we are broken.
God is with us, has made a way for us, and has plans for us that are more than we can ask for or imagine.
“We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us;” John wrote.
John also “but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood” (1 John 4:6).
Some people today think the path, road, of “faith” or “belief” is out of date.
But all of us have to deeply believe in something or we will fall for everything.
All of us have to place our feet upon a pathway, trust in someone or something.
How about you?
How about me?
Where does your ultimate pathway, our ultimate allegiance lie?
Allegiance strictly to self?
Allegiance strictly to God, the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit?
John reminds us that the content of faith is as important as the act of believing.
He calls us to “test the spirits” to determine whether our beliefs really come from God and are directed toward God.
John realizes that all who “believe in themselves” or put their confidence in human social and political power will inevitably, absolutely, be disappointed.
The content of our faith does not come from within ourselves or even from the latest ideas or movements around us.
The content of our faith comes from God, and God alone who has reached into a fallen world, walked Calvary’s path, speaks with a voice of love and authority.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 16 The Message
16 1-2 Keep me safe, O God,
I’ve run for dear life to you.
I say to God, “Be my Lord!”
Without you, nothing makes sense.
3 And these God-chosen lives all around—
what splendid friends they make!
4 Don’t just go shopping for a god.
Gods are not for sale.
I swear I’ll never treat god-names
like brand-names.
5-6 My choice is you, God, first and only.
And now I find I’m your choice!
You set me up with a house and yard.
And then you made me your heir!
7-8 The wise counsel God gives when I’m awake
is confirmed by my sleeping heart.
Day and night I’ll stick with God;
I’ve got a good thing going and I’m not letting go.
9-10 I’m happy from the inside out,
and from the outside in, I’m firmly formed.
You canceled my ticket to hell—
that’s not my destination!
11 Now you’ve got my feet on the life path,
all radiant from the shining of your face.
Ever since you took my hand,
I’m on the right way.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
