David took the gold shields that belonged to the officers of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem. From Tebah and Berothai, towns that belonged to Hadadezer, King David took a great quantity of bronze.
When Tou king of Hamath heard that David had defeated the entire army of Hadadezer, he sent his son Joram to King David to greet him and congratulate him on his victory in battle over Hadadezer, who had been at war with Tou. Joram brought with him articles of silver and gold and bronze.
King David dedicated these articles to the LORD, as he had done with the silver and gold from all the nations he had subdued: Edom and Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistines, and Amalek. He also dedicated the plunder taken from Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah.
And David became famous after he returned from striking down eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.
He put garrisons throughout Edom, and all the Edomites became subject to David. The LORD gave David victory wherever he went.
II Samuel 8:7-14
I have to confess something: However good a Christian I may be, I don't pray before I eat. Shame on me. Though it was modeled for me, more or less, in my childhood, it's not something that carried over into adulthood. I can't say I'm fully convicted to begin the practice, even though I recognize on an intellectual level that I probably should be. It would be a great heritage for my children, if done right.
This doesn't have anything to do with my own omission of thanks before eating, but all too often, I observe what I consider to be ungrateful thanks – rote, hasty, and insincere compliance with a ritual that is standing between us and eating. "Dear Father, thank you for this day; bless this food and the hands that prepared it. Amen." Done in less than five seconds! I just wonder what God thinks of such thanks. Is something better than nothing? Or would He rather us do nothing at all than to do something insincere? Something to ponder.
Whereas I'm not particularly convicted about pre-meal prayer, I have felt quite convicted about ingratitude in other areas. One such example happened just yesterday. In my morning prayer, I asked God for a small sign of encouragement. Later that day, I received it and when I did, the acknowledgement of it just skipped over my conscious thought like a smooth stone crossing a pond: Touch, touch, touch and then plop, sunken into my unconscious thought. Gone - without a word of thanks. Fortunately, God sent an angel with a scuba mask down into that pond to find that stone and bring it back up, raise it above the water and call out to me, "Hey! Did you see this? This was that small sign of encouragement you asked for earlier. I'm thinking you must not have seen it, because you didn't say anything about it."
"Thanks, Angel. I saw it and just completely ignored it. Thanks for bringing it back for me to contemplate."
And then I offered thanks.
What if I had ignored the angel in the scuba mask (however difficult a thing that might be to do!)? Well, our Heavenly Father is kind to the ungrateful and wicked (Luke 6:35) and does not treat us as our sins deserve (Psalms 103:10), so probably He would continue to give, give, give. That's just the way He is - a giving God! But why would I want to grieve God like that?
What if I rightly acknowledge God's gifts to me? Psalms 50:23 (ESV) says, "The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me." And the passage above from II Samuel is a good case study of what happens when we make it a practice to offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving for every good gift: "God gave David victory wherever he went."
I love that last verse and I have personalized it: God gave Donna victory wherever she went. But I also have largely ignored the preceding verses that detail what David was doing that was so favorable to God.
Every gift should prompt a sacrifice of thanksgiving from me - whether a small sign of encouragement, or a large sum or money. And this should be just the beginning of my gratitude toward the Father. A right attitude is to give thanks for all that I have (James 1:17) and in all that I do (Col. 3:17).
Wait! If I did this, I would be muttering thanks under my breath all day long. I would be praying continually. What a concept.
Contemplate this: How often do I sincerely offer thanks to God?
Showing posts with label gratitude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gratitude. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The American Delusion
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? Luke 16:10-12
Are you hiding something in your closet? I am. My closet is downright junky looking - shoes strewn all over the floor, clothes stuffed on the top shelf almost up to the ceiling. Other shoes crammed precariously in shelves, and the dirty clothes hamper on the floor, in an almost constant state of overflow. If there were something precious in my closet, no one could ever guess by looking. But there is something precious in there, lots of things - at least I thought so at the moment I parted with my hard-earned cash to purchase them. Or even more extreme, when I indebted myself with up to 20 percent interest to have them immediately when I really couldn't afford them.
But now look at those things - all crammed in together and hardly ever seen, let alone put into use. My closet reveals an unflattering truth about my house-keeping skills, but the real skeletons in it are the sins of ingratitude and greed. The truth is that I no longer appreciate many of my clothes and shoes, but at the same time, I'm not ready to part with them so someone else can appreciate them.
In 1995, I moved to Savannah, Ga., in a Mazda Protégé with a car-top U-Haul container. Everything I owned fit in or on top of a compact car! Five years later, when I moved to Corpus Christi, I needed a 17' U-haul truck. Four years after that, when we moved to Arkansas, we needed a 24' U-Haul with a car trailer behind, the car in tow was completely stuffed, and our Ford Ranger was overloaded, towing a 5'x 8' U-haul trailer behind it!
Clearly, over the last 15 years, I have been a rabid consumer. It is certainly no coincidence that in these same 15 years, I've struggled with credit card debt. How much of these things did I really need? Very few. Furthermore, I probably wouldn’t miss about 90 percent of it if tomorrow I gave it away. Quite often, I go through the house filling boxes and bags to take to the local thrift store. After the things are gone, not only do I never miss them, I can't even tell by looking that I gave anything away. In a hard analysis, I have to admit that I have been entrusted with more than a little and have not handled it very well.
Surely you can relate, if not personally, through the experience of a family member or friend. It's OK to have some things in reserve for special occasions, but most American families have much too much of more of the same. More CDs, more DVDs, more books, more clothes, shoes, picture frames, trinkets, wall hangings... This is, at very least, poor stewardship, and at worst, a mild form of mental illness - pakratitis.
I know, you think you need these things. This is typical American thinking, but when our thinking doesn't correspond with reality, it is a delusion. And in the last 60 years, Americans have become terribly delusional when it comes to their stuff. I count myself in this lot. I am becoming aware of my delusional thinking and behavior, but I haven't progressed to the point of behaving differently.
I am a big advocate of foreign travel, the kind that allows you to enter homes and see how people live. I've done a great deal of this kind of travel and have been privileged to be hosted in homes in France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala and Morocco. From the richest to the poorest, from the comfort of a Parisian flat, to a cane shack in the Amazon rain forest, each of these diverse homes and families had something in common: they operated with far fewer, and I mean far, far fewer material goods than the average American home. Clearly, our belief that we need our stuff does not correspond with reality.
Americans are so incredibly blessed, but I'm sad to say we've not been trustworthy in handling our worldly wealth. We've used our excess to fill curio shelves and closets. When our houses overflow, we buy sheds and rent storage units. And if that isn't crazy enough, we’re constantly moving from one house to the next and carting all that crap with us!
I am moving out of the country this summer, and it's going to present an opportunity for me to behave differently. Will I choose to pay to store away things I don't need? Or will I part with them, hopefully never to fill my closets with such nonsense again?
Our verse certainly gives me encouragement to do the right thing and give away the things I no longer value - and restrain from obtaining replacement trinkets. But it's countercultural to do so, and it seems to run in my family.
When my grandfather died, all the family that came to the funeral went through his garage and took something to remember him by, or anything they wanted or could use. When the garage was thoroughly picked over, it still held enough to stock a hardware store. What was the point of accumulating all that junk? If you're under the influence of another delusion, thinking that you're saving stuff for your kids: Newsflash! Your heirs don't want it.
I pray that God will continue to open my eyes to the truth about stuff and things and lead me to a better understanding of how earthly possessions affect me spiritually. I pray that He will cure me of my delusional perspectives, open my eyes to the reality of what I really need, help me to value the things I have, or let them go, and teach me to be a better steward of worldly wealth. I pray all of this, because I want to be able to be trusted with true riches.
Contemplate this: Do I value the things God has allowed me to have?
Are you hiding something in your closet? I am. My closet is downright junky looking - shoes strewn all over the floor, clothes stuffed on the top shelf almost up to the ceiling. Other shoes crammed precariously in shelves, and the dirty clothes hamper on the floor, in an almost constant state of overflow. If there were something precious in my closet, no one could ever guess by looking. But there is something precious in there, lots of things - at least I thought so at the moment I parted with my hard-earned cash to purchase them. Or even more extreme, when I indebted myself with up to 20 percent interest to have them immediately when I really couldn't afford them.
But now look at those things - all crammed in together and hardly ever seen, let alone put into use. My closet reveals an unflattering truth about my house-keeping skills, but the real skeletons in it are the sins of ingratitude and greed. The truth is that I no longer appreciate many of my clothes and shoes, but at the same time, I'm not ready to part with them so someone else can appreciate them.
In 1995, I moved to Savannah, Ga., in a Mazda Protégé with a car-top U-Haul container. Everything I owned fit in or on top of a compact car! Five years later, when I moved to Corpus Christi, I needed a 17' U-haul truck. Four years after that, when we moved to Arkansas, we needed a 24' U-Haul with a car trailer behind, the car in tow was completely stuffed, and our Ford Ranger was overloaded, towing a 5'x 8' U-haul trailer behind it!
Clearly, over the last 15 years, I have been a rabid consumer. It is certainly no coincidence that in these same 15 years, I've struggled with credit card debt. How much of these things did I really need? Very few. Furthermore, I probably wouldn’t miss about 90 percent of it if tomorrow I gave it away. Quite often, I go through the house filling boxes and bags to take to the local thrift store. After the things are gone, not only do I never miss them, I can't even tell by looking that I gave anything away. In a hard analysis, I have to admit that I have been entrusted with more than a little and have not handled it very well.
Surely you can relate, if not personally, through the experience of a family member or friend. It's OK to have some things in reserve for special occasions, but most American families have much too much of more of the same. More CDs, more DVDs, more books, more clothes, shoes, picture frames, trinkets, wall hangings... This is, at very least, poor stewardship, and at worst, a mild form of mental illness - pakratitis.
I know, you think you need these things. This is typical American thinking, but when our thinking doesn't correspond with reality, it is a delusion. And in the last 60 years, Americans have become terribly delusional when it comes to their stuff. I count myself in this lot. I am becoming aware of my delusional thinking and behavior, but I haven't progressed to the point of behaving differently.
I am a big advocate of foreign travel, the kind that allows you to enter homes and see how people live. I've done a great deal of this kind of travel and have been privileged to be hosted in homes in France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala and Morocco. From the richest to the poorest, from the comfort of a Parisian flat, to a cane shack in the Amazon rain forest, each of these diverse homes and families had something in common: they operated with far fewer, and I mean far, far fewer material goods than the average American home. Clearly, our belief that we need our stuff does not correspond with reality.
Americans are so incredibly blessed, but I'm sad to say we've not been trustworthy in handling our worldly wealth. We've used our excess to fill curio shelves and closets. When our houses overflow, we buy sheds and rent storage units. And if that isn't crazy enough, we’re constantly moving from one house to the next and carting all that crap with us!
I am moving out of the country this summer, and it's going to present an opportunity for me to behave differently. Will I choose to pay to store away things I don't need? Or will I part with them, hopefully never to fill my closets with such nonsense again?
Our verse certainly gives me encouragement to do the right thing and give away the things I no longer value - and restrain from obtaining replacement trinkets. But it's countercultural to do so, and it seems to run in my family.
When my grandfather died, all the family that came to the funeral went through his garage and took something to remember him by, or anything they wanted or could use. When the garage was thoroughly picked over, it still held enough to stock a hardware store. What was the point of accumulating all that junk? If you're under the influence of another delusion, thinking that you're saving stuff for your kids: Newsflash! Your heirs don't want it.
I pray that God will continue to open my eyes to the truth about stuff and things and lead me to a better understanding of how earthly possessions affect me spiritually. I pray that He will cure me of my delusional perspectives, open my eyes to the reality of what I really need, help me to value the things I have, or let them go, and teach me to be a better steward of worldly wealth. I pray all of this, because I want to be able to be trusted with true riches.
Contemplate this: Do I value the things God has allowed me to have?
Monday, November 2, 2009
For All My Efforts
Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.
Deuteronomy 8:11-14a, 17-18
Do you recall the story of how Jacob, who later became Israel, father of the nation, became wealthy? Remember after cheating his brother out of the birthright and then lying to his father to get the blessing of the first born, he took off to his uncle Laban’s house. A lot of good the birthright and blessing did him. Because of the way he went about getting them, he had to get out of Dodge and quick, for fear of the wrath of his brother. So he arrives at Uncle Laban’s with nothing and that dear fellow gave him a place to live and a dose of his own medicine.
Laban agreed to give Jacob his daughter Rachel in marriage in exchange for seven years of labor. The morning after the wedding night, Jacob realizes Uncle Laban is a cad and has given him the wrong girl, the ugly older sister, Leah. Well, too late to give her back now! So he agrees to work yet another seven years for Rachel, the one he really wanted.
During this time, Jacob realizes he’s got to get smart with Uncle Laban if he ever wants to get ahead. So he makes a deal with him: “I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them. Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages,” (Gen. 30:32). From then on, Jacob was to get all the spotted and speckled among the flocks and herds.
Now Jacob had a strategy: he took “fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted,” (Gen. 30:37-38) because as anyone in animal husbandry can tell you, if you want spotted, speckled or streaked livestock, you have to expose them to this kind of environment when they’re drinking and mating, right? He further bettered his livestock by selecting only the stronger females to expose to these gene-influencing branches. “In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservents, and camels and donkeys,” (Gen. 30:43).
So that was the secret of his success – striped braches in the watering trough. I wonder how many Israelite shepherds throughout history tried to replicate this strategy and ended up wondering why it wasn’t working for them. I suppose that it is possible that being in a certain type of environment could encourage genetic selection in favor of that environment in one generation, but any way you look at it from the perspective of our current understanding of genetics, it’s clear that what Jacob was doing had little to no bearing on the result he was getting.
And yet God certainly knew that when you and I would read this story thousands of years later, we would understand that poor Jacob was clueless and really just grasping at straws. On the other hand, he was doing something, anything, the only thing he could think of to try to become more prosperous. He was making an effort. But it was God who gave the increase because of the plan that he had for Jacob.
We might think Jacob was pretty naïve, but not so. He knew the score. He told his wives: “God has not allowed [Laban] to harm me. If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, ‘The streaked ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore streaked young. So God has taken away your father’s livestock and has given them to me.”
If he had made this connection, that his success was God’s doing, why would he bother peeling almond branches? I’m gonna say he did it because it was all he knew to do. Whereas he attributed God with the increase, Jacob contributed all he could as well, even it if was sheer nonsense by today’s standards.
What about your success thus far? Have your flocks and herds increased by your own efforts, or did God come along and miraculously cause the increase? Careful how you answer.
Who can explain why certain things succeed so and others do not. It’s not all about marketing – some companies spend millions of dollars on a campaign that produces no results. It’s not about talent, if that were the ticket wouldn’t ever Denzel Washington movie have been a box office hit? Perseverance? Don’t you know a starving artist who has been starving for decades? There’s something very mysterious about success, and whereas I don’t think all of it is God’s will, he’s certainly allowing every success. God is enabling our health, intelligence, relative peace so we can work, and an environment in which we can be successful – capitalist United States of America. These things are much more tenuous than we believe. From one day to the next any of it could change at God’s command. But God allows these favorable conditions so that we can produce wealth.
If anyone has their doubts about whether God disapproves of fine houses, having some silver and gold on hand, and a big successful family business, let this scripture put that question to rest. God says in his word that enabling this ability to produce wealth is how he confirms his covenant with Israel. I’m no theologian, but I think this somehow applies to us gentiles to as. Like Paul said in Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
So good! But wait, there’s a flipside to this. “If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God,” Deut. 8:19-20.
With great privilege comes great responsibility. And the privilege of wealth carries with it the responsibility of gratitude and recognition of the one Force that made it possible, at a minimum.
Contemplate this: In what ways have I seen the hand of God enabling my success in the past and present?
Deuteronomy 8:11-14a, 17-18
Do you recall the story of how Jacob, who later became Israel, father of the nation, became wealthy? Remember after cheating his brother out of the birthright and then lying to his father to get the blessing of the first born, he took off to his uncle Laban’s house. A lot of good the birthright and blessing did him. Because of the way he went about getting them, he had to get out of Dodge and quick, for fear of the wrath of his brother. So he arrives at Uncle Laban’s with nothing and that dear fellow gave him a place to live and a dose of his own medicine.
Laban agreed to give Jacob his daughter Rachel in marriage in exchange for seven years of labor. The morning after the wedding night, Jacob realizes Uncle Laban is a cad and has given him the wrong girl, the ugly older sister, Leah. Well, too late to give her back now! So he agrees to work yet another seven years for Rachel, the one he really wanted.
During this time, Jacob realizes he’s got to get smart with Uncle Laban if he ever wants to get ahead. So he makes a deal with him: “I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them. Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages,” (Gen. 30:32). From then on, Jacob was to get all the spotted and speckled among the flocks and herds.
Now Jacob had a strategy: he took “fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted,” (Gen. 30:37-38) because as anyone in animal husbandry can tell you, if you want spotted, speckled or streaked livestock, you have to expose them to this kind of environment when they’re drinking and mating, right? He further bettered his livestock by selecting only the stronger females to expose to these gene-influencing branches. “In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservents, and camels and donkeys,” (Gen. 30:43).
So that was the secret of his success – striped braches in the watering trough. I wonder how many Israelite shepherds throughout history tried to replicate this strategy and ended up wondering why it wasn’t working for them. I suppose that it is possible that being in a certain type of environment could encourage genetic selection in favor of that environment in one generation, but any way you look at it from the perspective of our current understanding of genetics, it’s clear that what Jacob was doing had little to no bearing on the result he was getting.
And yet God certainly knew that when you and I would read this story thousands of years later, we would understand that poor Jacob was clueless and really just grasping at straws. On the other hand, he was doing something, anything, the only thing he could think of to try to become more prosperous. He was making an effort. But it was God who gave the increase because of the plan that he had for Jacob.
We might think Jacob was pretty naïve, but not so. He knew the score. He told his wives: “God has not allowed [Laban] to harm me. If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, ‘The streaked ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore streaked young. So God has taken away your father’s livestock and has given them to me.”
If he had made this connection, that his success was God’s doing, why would he bother peeling almond branches? I’m gonna say he did it because it was all he knew to do. Whereas he attributed God with the increase, Jacob contributed all he could as well, even it if was sheer nonsense by today’s standards.
What about your success thus far? Have your flocks and herds increased by your own efforts, or did God come along and miraculously cause the increase? Careful how you answer.
Who can explain why certain things succeed so and others do not. It’s not all about marketing – some companies spend millions of dollars on a campaign that produces no results. It’s not about talent, if that were the ticket wouldn’t ever Denzel Washington movie have been a box office hit? Perseverance? Don’t you know a starving artist who has been starving for decades? There’s something very mysterious about success, and whereas I don’t think all of it is God’s will, he’s certainly allowing every success. God is enabling our health, intelligence, relative peace so we can work, and an environment in which we can be successful – capitalist United States of America. These things are much more tenuous than we believe. From one day to the next any of it could change at God’s command. But God allows these favorable conditions so that we can produce wealth.
If anyone has their doubts about whether God disapproves of fine houses, having some silver and gold on hand, and a big successful family business, let this scripture put that question to rest. God says in his word that enabling this ability to produce wealth is how he confirms his covenant with Israel. I’m no theologian, but I think this somehow applies to us gentiles to as. Like Paul said in Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
So good! But wait, there’s a flipside to this. “If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God,” Deut. 8:19-20.
With great privilege comes great responsibility. And the privilege of wealth carries with it the responsibility of gratitude and recognition of the one Force that made it possible, at a minimum.
Contemplate this: In what ways have I seen the hand of God enabling my success in the past and present?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Have You Enjoyed Your Toilet Seat Today?
I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.
A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man - even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity.
Ecclesiastes 6:1-6a
I love to grow herbs. It makes me feel rich to have a pot of basil that has enough leaves on it to divvy up into a dozen bunches such as I would buy at the supermarket for $3 each. That makes that bush worth $36! Add rosemary, oregano and dill and I've got more than $100 sitting on my patio. Just as much as I like to grow them, I also like to share them. I had been in the good habit of snipping herbs on Sunday and taking them in plastic baggies in a basket to church, sitting them in the foyer with a sign that says "Free." That was a great pleasure to me and one I looked forward to all spring as my herbs were growing to full foliage. But then something happened that I can't fully explain and all of the sudden summer is over, the herbs are dying and I never shared them even once. I just now sat looking out my window at a second dill plant that seeded itself, noting how it's big enough to start snipping and I felt regret at not having shared my herbs at all this year. It is my greatest joy in growing herbs and I didn't get it experience it this year because I've been too… busy, I guess.
I have every expectation that next year will be different, more like years past, but what if it weren't? What if year after year, and not just with the herbs but with all my prized possessions, I had good intentions of enjoying them that life crowded out. It's like the person who lives on the ocean and never sets foot in the sand. What is the use of this? Indeed, this is the condition of futility that Solomon observes above, and it is more powerful than I might have imagined from my small experience with unshared herbs. Solomon says that if a person can't enjoy all the desires of his heart, things he has in his grasp already, but lacks wherewithal to enjoy them, it is such a desperate condition that that person would actually be better off never having been born at all. Wow. I contemplate lives that I think may have been better off not happening - like children in sex trade or slavery – but I don't think I've ever lumped a filthy rich person who has everything they could ever want in that category. I'll have to trust Solomon on this one though because he should know. The Bible says he was the richest man who ever lived (stand back Bill Gates!), and the wisest, and whereas I don't think he was talking about himself in this passage, if any human could know such a thing, he could.
What I find most interesting in this passage is that God is credited with both giving the man all the desires of his heart and keeping him from enjoying them. Why would God do such a thing? Justice? Couldn't that be achieved by just not letting him have all the desires of his heart, but rather just some, a fair amount? God has made everything for His own purpose, some to glorify Him, the wicked for a day of disaster and some miserable yet filthy rich dude as an example to the rest of us of why we shouldn't envy the person who has everything money can buy. Seems like there are worse things in life than to be filthy rich and unable to enjoy it, but no! There aren't! Solomon says live two, thousand-years lives this way if you could and you're still better off never having been born. Let that sink in. This is the worst kind of miserable. Can money really do this to a person?
I trust you are not this miserable, praise God, but here's a tough question: Are you enjoying the desires of your heart that God has given you? Take a moment to think about what some of those things are: a boat, a nice car, a yard with grass, a special ring, a plasma TV, the perfect coffee mug, a summer vacation? Are you enjoying these things, really enjoying them? Or are you taking them for granted? Now let's go a little more basic and think about things you might be taking for granted because you wouldn't even recognize them as being desires of your heart until you didn’t have them: a hot shower daily, a toilet to sit on (versus, say, a hole to squat over), vision (even if it has to be corrected), hearing (ditto), climate-controlled housing... When was the last time you enjoyed a hot shower? You may have had one this morning, but did you enjoy it? The miserable rich man surely had a hot shower daily too - it's not the having of the thing that matters, it's the enjoyment of it. When did you last enjoy your vision and hearing? When did they last give you real joy? When did you last consciously appreciate them?
You think I've made my point, but I haven't. The point is that life for a follower of Christ is supposed to be abundant and that means enjoyment. We can experience that abundance any day of the week at any moment by turning our attention to the desires of our heart that God has given us. Any given day, I can walk out on my patio and snip some herbs to take to a neighbor - my greatest herbal joy. So, what's stopping me?
Contemplate this: What is keeping me from fully enjoying the good things in my life right now?
A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man - even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity.
Ecclesiastes 6:1-6a
I love to grow herbs. It makes me feel rich to have a pot of basil that has enough leaves on it to divvy up into a dozen bunches such as I would buy at the supermarket for $3 each. That makes that bush worth $36! Add rosemary, oregano and dill and I've got more than $100 sitting on my patio. Just as much as I like to grow them, I also like to share them. I had been in the good habit of snipping herbs on Sunday and taking them in plastic baggies in a basket to church, sitting them in the foyer with a sign that says "Free." That was a great pleasure to me and one I looked forward to all spring as my herbs were growing to full foliage. But then something happened that I can't fully explain and all of the sudden summer is over, the herbs are dying and I never shared them even once. I just now sat looking out my window at a second dill plant that seeded itself, noting how it's big enough to start snipping and I felt regret at not having shared my herbs at all this year. It is my greatest joy in growing herbs and I didn't get it experience it this year because I've been too… busy, I guess.
I have every expectation that next year will be different, more like years past, but what if it weren't? What if year after year, and not just with the herbs but with all my prized possessions, I had good intentions of enjoying them that life crowded out. It's like the person who lives on the ocean and never sets foot in the sand. What is the use of this? Indeed, this is the condition of futility that Solomon observes above, and it is more powerful than I might have imagined from my small experience with unshared herbs. Solomon says that if a person can't enjoy all the desires of his heart, things he has in his grasp already, but lacks wherewithal to enjoy them, it is such a desperate condition that that person would actually be better off never having been born at all. Wow. I contemplate lives that I think may have been better off not happening - like children in sex trade or slavery – but I don't think I've ever lumped a filthy rich person who has everything they could ever want in that category. I'll have to trust Solomon on this one though because he should know. The Bible says he was the richest man who ever lived (stand back Bill Gates!), and the wisest, and whereas I don't think he was talking about himself in this passage, if any human could know such a thing, he could.
What I find most interesting in this passage is that God is credited with both giving the man all the desires of his heart and keeping him from enjoying them. Why would God do such a thing? Justice? Couldn't that be achieved by just not letting him have all the desires of his heart, but rather just some, a fair amount? God has made everything for His own purpose, some to glorify Him, the wicked for a day of disaster and some miserable yet filthy rich dude as an example to the rest of us of why we shouldn't envy the person who has everything money can buy. Seems like there are worse things in life than to be filthy rich and unable to enjoy it, but no! There aren't! Solomon says live two, thousand-years lives this way if you could and you're still better off never having been born. Let that sink in. This is the worst kind of miserable. Can money really do this to a person?
I trust you are not this miserable, praise God, but here's a tough question: Are you enjoying the desires of your heart that God has given you? Take a moment to think about what some of those things are: a boat, a nice car, a yard with grass, a special ring, a plasma TV, the perfect coffee mug, a summer vacation? Are you enjoying these things, really enjoying them? Or are you taking them for granted? Now let's go a little more basic and think about things you might be taking for granted because you wouldn't even recognize them as being desires of your heart until you didn’t have them: a hot shower daily, a toilet to sit on (versus, say, a hole to squat over), vision (even if it has to be corrected), hearing (ditto), climate-controlled housing... When was the last time you enjoyed a hot shower? You may have had one this morning, but did you enjoy it? The miserable rich man surely had a hot shower daily too - it's not the having of the thing that matters, it's the enjoyment of it. When did you last enjoy your vision and hearing? When did they last give you real joy? When did you last consciously appreciate them?
You think I've made my point, but I haven't. The point is that life for a follower of Christ is supposed to be abundant and that means enjoyment. We can experience that abundance any day of the week at any moment by turning our attention to the desires of our heart that God has given us. Any given day, I can walk out on my patio and snip some herbs to take to a neighbor - my greatest herbal joy. So, what's stopping me?
Contemplate this: What is keeping me from fully enjoying the good things in my life right now?
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