Are We Richer Than Solomon?

Let me start by giving you some advice. Don't read Ecclesiastes if you are depressed. I'm reading through the Bible this year and knocked out this book a few days ago in my quiet time unaware that later in the day I'd receive some sad news. Of course I had no way of knowing that, but I'm just saying, maybe skip it. I'll sum it up for you. There's a season to everything but overall there's nothing new under the sun, everything is pointless, then you die and other people get your stuff. 

Also a summation of every estate sale you've ever been to. 

If you haven't read it in a while you might remember it being beautiful and poetic, uplifting even. That's probably because in the sixties the Byrds took the coolest part of the book and made it into a song. 

Turn, Turn, Turn. 

You can hear it now, right?

Solomon, who as you will recall was on a lifelong quest for wisdom which he asked God for, comes up with advice on how to live a worthwhile life. His conclusion for how to live is to fear God and keep his commands and be happy in your work. Not bad advice but everyone up to him had been saying the same thing without the vocational recommendation. 

His more practical advice for living is found in Proverbs.

How much richer are we than Solomon that we live in the light of the grace of Jesus and as Christians we have the Holy Spirit living in us? We have the Gospels and all the writings of the New Testament. While the things Solomon says are true he lived his entire life without knowing the fullest truth of God's plan for the salvation of mankind. 

When you read Ecclesiastes you can almost hear him saying, "This is it?" 

For the full context of his final conclusions about the meaning of life you'll need to read the accounts of all he accomplished. (1 Kings 4-9 and 2 Chronicles 3-9)

 It's far more than you or I could hope to achieve in our wildest dreams. 

Even so...

Maybe the best way to approach Ecclesiastes is to read it with sympathy for the man who achieved such incredible things in his lifetime, a man who's name is still remembered and associated with great wisdom and building the Temple. But for all of that he did, he didn't have access to the completed plan of God. He lived and died with the greatest event in history hundreds of years in the future and never having heard the greatest news of all. 

So for all his vast wealth, reputation, and wisdom you and I are in a better position to have hope for the future than Solomon. We live in the light of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. We have the gift of grace and the assurance of our own resurrection and eternity with God. 

Solomon in all his wisdom could not have imagined such a thing. 

Seasons of Home: Spring Cleaning

The approach of spring, which if you follow this blog, you would imagine fills me with joy and anticipation had the opposite effect on me this year. I laid on the couch recovering from food poisoning in a dirty house and looked out the window at a garden in such bad shape I just wanted to rip it out and sod the whole thing. 

Have you been there? 

And as a beekeeper spring means even more work and the clock is ticking and doesn't stop because I'm over all the things. While I was wasting time and procrastinating, because that's what we do when we don't have a plan, I found a bunch of cleaning videos on YouTube. I have to say watching someone else clean has an almost magical effect. 

I thought, "I can at least clean the sink and wipe down my counters."

Three hours later I had deep cleaned my entire kitchen including cleaning the oven and the refrigerator. 

If you are stuck I highly recommend any of the "clean with me" videos on YouTube that appeal to you. The attitude adjustment is almost instant. 

A week later I had finished my setting the house in order and doing it reminded me of my mom, who believed spring cleaning was a team sport. 

She'd pick a day and put on a stack of records or turn up the radio and set us to work taking apart our rooms or helping her in the kitchen or living room and clean the things that didn't get done in our regular daily or weekly chore list. This included things like moving furniture to sweep behind it and dusting pleated lampshades with a paint brush. No one ever wanted to do any of this but once we got started we began looking for things to clean and to see dirt that had been invisible to us only the day before. 

She made it feel like an event with open windows and music. After a few hours of work she'd yell, "Break time!" We'd all sit down and eat some terrible corporate mid century junk food like Ruffles and French onion dip or rip open a bag of Chips Ahoy. Then it was back to work fueled by Coke and and chemicals. At the end of the day we were all exhausted but satisfied and the house sparkled. The air even felt cleaner. 

My mother never read any books by admirals about making your bed or the power of atomic habits but she did understand the power of getting started and of making something that could have been drudgery into an event. 

Maybe it's that same upbeat commraderie makes the Millenial mommies' YouTube videos fun and inspiring to watch.

What's your favorite way to motivate yourself when you don't feel like doing anything?

Swerve and Keep Going

 

Isn't it strange how things you see every day become invisible? Like that important piece of paper you tack on the bulletin board and then fail to see when you actually need it. It's so common for us to overlook things unless there is some kind of change involved. Our human brains need to create a lot of shortcuts for thinking in order to keep functioning in our ever increasingly complex world, we tune out a lot of information we've already seen. 

This truth struck me last winter.  During a blast of winter weather while walking with one of our dogs I noticed a "swerve right" or "keep right" sign that I've seen hundreds of thousands of times over the past 30 years. 

Later by the fire with a cup of tea and a now warm dog on the sofa next to me I was struck with the thought that this sign which technically means "keep right" seemed to be saying swerve and move on. Avoid the obstacle and keep going. And even if you take the literal meaning, keep right isn't bad advice either based on the definition of right: what is good, proper, and just.

 Do you want to be in accordance with what is bad, improper, and unjust? I'm guessing no. 

Beehives that are doing well are known as queen right. I know you were up all night wondering about that. 

 There are times to stick to our guns but lots of situations call for us to be able to wisely maneuver instead of plowing ahead. Very often we can swerve to avoid disaster. We can adjust the sail to chart a new course. Charting a new course when things have gone sideways is a valuable life skill. It's the character trait of resilience. One thing we should learn as early as possible is that moving forward no matter how haltingly you are doing it is important. Two steps forward and one step back is still progress. 

Knowing when to hold on tight and barrel through and when to pivot and recalculate takes wisdom, not knowledge.  Fortunately, we can ask for that. 

James 1:5

If any of you lacks wisdom let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.  

 

 

The Simulation

People who don't want to believe in God, sometimes only because it's what their parents and the church taught them, will believe anything else. They'll believe that something can come from nothing even though it's a scientific principle that is impossible. They'll believe in life forces and affirmations and magic rocks and a myriad of other things which come without a standard of behavior. Not having any higher authority to tell them where they have gone wrong seems to be the main point of searching for something else. The latest version of this thinking is The Simulation.

I listen to a lot of different podcasts from a wide variety of people with divergent thoughts and ideas and this theory is becoming prevalent. It goes roughly like this: 

We're in the matrix. Or a matrix or computer game or some other version of a simulated world. In this world there's an intelligent being running things. We can affect things about our own lives by choices we make in the simulation though the jury is out on whether or not free will exists. Sometimes something coincidental or strange happens. "That's the simulation winking at us." They say. Whoever is running the whole thing is wildly and unimaginably intelligent and we are nothing by comparison.

Let's translate. We live in a created world. A mind with infinitely superior knowledge created this world and us. This intelligence orders events and affects things in this created world. This being influences us and tries to communicate. Compared to the creator we are inferior to the point of total dependence. 

That sounds vaguely familiar. Almost like we live in a created world that God created. He also created us and desires to know us and have a relationship with us. He speaks directly to us through His word, nature, our conscience, and if we are believers through the Holy Spirit. We cannot live or exist or have our being without him. 

A belief in the Christian God comes with an added benefit. The God of the universe loves each us and wants what's best for us.  Our lives have purpose in a cosmic battle of good and evil. There's redemption. 

Let's set aside actual belief in God for a moment. You just can't bring yourself to believe for whatever reason. That's fine. But compare these two ways of framing reality. If you wanted to choose a lens to filter your life through which one would bring the most comfort? Which one would alleviate your deepest fears in the middle of a dark and lonely night? Which one would give you hope that your life is not just a meaningless bundle of experiences? 

Which one touches your heart and soul?

 Even if all we are doing is choosing a way of looking at the world belief in the Christian God comes with the added benefit of feeling loved and cared for by a creator. It's also the only one that comes with a self sacrificing hero who showed up to save us all. It comes complete with a set of rules for living. It offers the hope that even the worst things can be used in the grand scheme and good can come out of our despair. It says there is evil in the world but it will be overcome with good. 

It says you have a Father and a Friend. 

New Year, New Direction

 

Have you seen people posting New Year, New Me! If only. Right? 

Some people go the opposite direction, New Year same me. Well that's defeatist as well as impossible. Also, do any of us really think we're all that great the way we are? 

New Year, new direction. That might be the Goldilocks resolution. 

We can't make over our entire personalities in one year or ever for that matter yet lots of people behave as if they can Cinderella the change at midnight. Staying the same isn't possible either. It's equally impossible. Life is about change. Everything alive is changing all the time. Every leaf. Every animal. Every human being. Even every cell. 

We are at all times either going forward or backward. There is no standing still so we might want to develop some kind of plan for that. 

Here's a hopeful goal. 

We can change direction. We can stop going along the same old road in ruts put down by habit or the influence of others and go a different way. 

Imagine yourself as a car. You don't magically become a Lamborghini because you pass a particular mile marker. But we can note the marker and ask ourselves how long have we been driving mindlessly on this road? How long have we been in low gear? How did all this trash get into the car? 

We can take notes and correct. We can choose another road going slowly at once because it's unfamiliar then gaining speed as we move along. Did we get lost somewhere along the way? Do we need to consult the GPS? We can always decide to wake up and pay attention, work on driving the car better and marking our progress. 

This is where I find myself at the start of this new year. Changing my focus and looking around to see where I am. I'm taking a new road. God is at work in unfathomable ways and as he loves doing new things.