Friday 21st April
Read Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
“What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil – this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure for ever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.
15 Whatever is has already been,
and what will be has been before;
and God will call the past to account.” (NIVUK)
Considering the majestic poem about the control God has over everything it may seem jarring that the Teacher jumps to this question of profit from toil. Yet the poem forms the perfect introduction to this important reflection on meaning in life. Despite our burden God ‘has made everything beautiful in its time’ (v11a).
What is the burden? The burden is twofold. The first clue is found in the phrase ‘human race’ (v10c), an unfortunate translation of what is literally ‘sons of men’ in the Hebrew. When we reflect on and follow that phrase back through scripture, we again find ourselves in Genesis 5. There we read that ‘When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.” (Genesis 5:3) (NIVUK). A phrase that looks innocent enough until we remember that Adam was made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). If Adam is producing sons (and daughters) in his own image and likeness – something of God’s image has been lost. We are fallen. This creates a burden and toil (cf Genesis 3).
The second clue is found in that most beautiful of phrases ‘He has also set eternity in the human heart’ (v11b). We know, instinctively, that our time-bound nature, our constrained view of life, means we don’t know all there is to know. We know that eternity awaits but that we are limited and finite in both knowledge and lifespan. Frustration is our lot. Our small, earth-bound, time-bound, perspective on life constrains us in both large and small ways. We don’t know the ‘times’ that God has purposed. We can’t see the future. If we can’t know God’s purposes how can we live in a way that honours him? How do we know what the right decision is?
Some people have a view of providence and divine guidance such that God has a specific, unique, individual purpose for their life. Imagine if they take a misstep from that ordained plan because they don’t know the end from the beginning. Or they somehow misunderstand God’s purposes. After all, ‘no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end’ (v11c). What then? Do they have to find God’s ‘second-best’ plan for their lives? And ‘third-best’? Or ‘twenty-two thousand four hundred and fifty-sixth best’? Will the burden of finding God’s perfect plan for their life eventually break them?
The wise person, like the Teacher, knows that everything is eternal and beautiful, but that knowledge is tantalisingly out-of-reach. They recognise and acknowledge their burden. The Teacher’s conclusion to this problem is so gracious as to be almost beyond belief. But we will consider that tomorrow. Or you can reflect on it today (v12-13)…
