WISDOM FOR LIFE

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Opening Prayer

Heavenly Father, may Your love, peace and joy dwell within me today. To You, I bring my praise and thanksgiving.

Read ECCLESIASTES 11:1–10

^[1] Ship your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return. ^[2] Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land. ^[3] If clouds are full of water, they pour rain on the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there it will lie. ^[4] Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap. ^[5] As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. ^[6] Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. ^[7] Light is sweet, and it pleases the eyes to see the sun. ^[8] However many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all. But let them remember the days of darkness, for there will be many. Everything to come is meaningless. ^[9] You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. ^[10] So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.

Meditate

“A Christian administrative assistant in an office may have the opportunity to ‘pastor’ more people in a day than a traditional pastor” (Mark Greene).

Think Further

Our Teacher is nothing if not practical. Wisdom, for him, is lived in the real world. Wisdom tells us how to invest (1) and where (2). It gives us understanding of the natural world (3). It guides us in our work within God’s world (4). These simple-sounding proverbs are packed with dynamite. They make two statements that are revolutionary in the world in which the Teacher lives and are still so in ours.

The first is that the world of work matters. God does not give us wisdom in order to improve our religious experience. He gives us wisdom for the whole of our lives. If you have slipped into the belief that God is only interested in Sunday, pray for his will to be done in all you undertake from Monday to Saturday. The second revolutionary idea is that God’s order can be found in the natural world. The conditions the Teacher describes, from the growth of an investment to the fall of a tree, would be attributed by many in his culture to the random acts of capricious and hostile gods. The actions of the gods were to be endured, not understood. Human beings were the victims, not the partners, of divinity.

The Teacher’s God, by contrast, is trustworthy and reliable. He has made a world we can safely live in. It remains true that we cannot grasp the breadth of his mystery (5), but we can rely on it. What we sow, we will reap (6). This is the God whose ways we can trust, whose rhythms we can live in. From the hope of youth (9) to the wisdom of age (8), God is faithful to us. We can trust him with the whole of our lives.

Apply

Do you feel that you are trusting God in your daily life? Why or why not? How does this passage help you develop your trust in God?

Closing prayer

“What I pray matters, but so does what I eat. What I believe and what I buy… give me, God, a life-wide vision” (Gerard Kelly).

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