Here we go Thursday

I've been reading and studying Ecclesiastes all week. Wow, it sure fits the weather and lots of other things going on! Solomon (or a Solomon-like character) wrestles with the (to use a deep theological term) stinkiness of life. There are a lot of inexplicable things that happen. "Meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless!" Of course at the end he bows in submission to the will of God.

Some think that Ecclesiastes, along with Job, are "corrections" to proverbial wisdom. In Proverbs you get statements that say, If you do this, then this will happen. We all know from experience that life does not always work that way. There seem to be exceptions to everything. For example, not every child raised right stays on the right path (see Proverbs 22:6).

Job helps us understand inexplicable suffering - there is much more to life than we can see, and we can never understand it all. Ecclesiastes is along the same line, and it frustrates the "Teacher." He tries everything to makes sense of life, including wisdom. All of it is frustrating. There is more "out there" that is beyond human knowledge and experience.

In the end the conclusion is that you must fear God and do what he says. That is the only way to make sense of life. Faith is the key.

Luke Timothy Johnson, in The Creed, writes this:

Christians need to begin by insisting, first of all to themselves, then to each other, and finally to the world, that faith itself is a way of knowing reality. They need to insist that faith establishes contact with reality in a way different from, but no less real than, the very limited (though, in their fashion, extremely impressive) ways of knowing by which the wheels of the world’s empirical engine are kept spinning. Christians need as well to cultivate practices that reveal and reinforce perceptions of the world that include “things invisible” as much as “things visible.”

He echoes the writer of Hebrews.

Hebrews 11:3 — By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Hebrews 11:6 — And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Life is full of frustrations and meaningless, mindless junk at times, but to makes sense of it, you have to have faith. There are times when you simply bow before the mystery of God and press on!