"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." (Ecclesiastes 1:2)
For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)
I am writing today from a position of unbalance. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the pace of life and it's meaning. We are told to work hard and to invest in those that we love and that a reward will be gained as a result. Many people work to give good things to their children only to have that wealth squandered by a wayward child or grandchild. Many build up good reputations over a lifetime only to be forgotten within one generation. Many pay studious attention to their credit rating, acceptance by others, hiding their faults only to find out in the end that they did not truly live. The very foundations on which we often place our anchors, gives way and we find ourselves adrift once again.
I had a friend tell me many years ago that if he knew that he could just die and there be nothing after, he would not want to go through the struggle. He stated that a fear of what is on the other side keeps him in the struggle. As I am reflecting on this a question comes to mind. Does God want us to live in fear of what is on the other side? Should fear be our motivator for living well in the hopes that one day our lives will be weighed in some great cosmic scale and found worthy to enter peace?
Many would say that what comes after is a "re-entry" into this world to live out all of the lessons that we somehow missed in the last entry. Many would say that this cycle repeats itself. But repeats itself to what? Even if one holds to that view, once all the lessons have been "learned", what comes next?
We often look at each other and say, "Oh it's God will." We often say this carelessly about someone else who may be struggling or who has had their life turned upside down. When we are at a loss to make sense of something in this present world, we just flippantly say, "Oh, it must be God's will."
If it must be God's Will, are we living in a scripted world? Has everything been predetermined based on choices that God knew in advance we were going to make? If so, why the struggle?
I know that reading these thoughts may be unsettling but these are things that are thought by many, believed by many, but seldom spoken. Occasionally, when a person is frustrated enough, some of these things "seep" out in one way or another.
We often approach the Word of God from a standpoint of "logic." To borrow from philosophy and even mathematics, we approach understanding from an "if--then" perspective. We expect to come up with some orderly system. But.....life is NOT orderly. It is not fair. It is not logical.
Herein lies the difficulty. Life is pictured by God in the Bible in very simplistic terms. There are two ways to approach life. 1) By Faith 2)By Sight (our senses, logic, natural laws) . If we live life by faith which is believing what is unseen and what God has explicitly said or implicitly implied, we can rest in the assurance that He is in control and we don't have to see the end to trust that our benevolent creator will bring things to a joyous conclusion. Or if we live by "sight" (our senses, logic, natural laws) we go about feeling lost, uncertain, unable to cope, unable to reconcile the many irreconcilable "realities" of this world.
It is at times like these that we each have to clarify how we will live.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
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