"I have seen everything in this meaningless life, including the death of good young people and the long life of wicked people. 16 So don’t be too good or too wise! Why destroy yourself? On the other hand, don’t be too wicked either. Don’t be a fool! Why die before your time? Pay attention to these instructions, for anyone who fears God will avoid both extremes." Ecclesiastes 7:15-18
TWO of the things we need to bravely face in life are its excesses and extremes. This identical twin challenges our faith and exposes our fears.
It assaults our expectations and drowns our hope. It will eventually make us lose hope in man and in ourselves. As we sail the rough seas of excesses and extremes, we will realize that we desperately need God.
Our need for God is not only a need for rescue or to be bailed out.
Our need for God is not just about escaping difficult situations and avoiding difficult people... it is really a timely awakening that knowing God and fearing Him are now our reasons for living!
Meanwhile, we really need a quiet heart and a steady hand guided by wisdom to navigate these rough seas: facing the monsters of evil without becoming monsters ourselves; confronting our subtle denials; praying that God will grant us a soft heart; humbly submitting to God so we may avail of His grace and cause us to see His purpose... quietly submitting or surrendering to His purging’s.
With a quiet heart, let us have a steady hand guided by wisdom as we sail this journey. Wisdom reminds us of the One who sails with us. Though we may find Him asleep during the storms, He is never going to leave us to sail alone.
While this is truth, we also need to step in Faith and sail through. Do you see how praise and worship of God can quickly turn to persecution and worry the moment things no longer happen the way we expect them to?
The book of Ecclesiastes gives us these anchors of wisdom to help us stay steady when the current of life's reality is strong. We need these anchors of wisdom to help us stay on the right path. Remember, the enemy is not the obvious evils of life, it is our foolish assumption of what is good.
Solomon, with God-given wisdom and scars of his own foolishness, gives us some timely insights that can guide us in facing a tumultuous sail through the seas of reality.
A quiet heart of wisdom opens a wider space for us to accept realistic expectations that confront our normal expectations (verse 15)
Give space for these realities
• The reality of Unfairness
• The reality of the Untimely
• The reality of the Unreasonable
Let the word SPACE, along with its acronyms, be our guide:
S - Surprises are part of life
P - People will be people
A - Attitude matters the most
C - Convictions change
E - Empathy works wonders
A quiet heart of wisdom observes and explores possibilities for prayerful reflections to overcome rather than our reaction of the flesh. It gives way for insight than impulse (verses 16-18). (To be continued tomorrow)