Weekly Meditations: Ecclesiastes 6:10-12; Decisions are Meaningless

If you haven't been reading lately, I've been looking at the book of Ecclesiastes section by section and have focused on something that Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, touches on as a meaningless thing or simply a component of life.  Then, I have looked at how that thing or component of life has meaning when Jesus is added into the equation.  I didn't make this up however as Solomon is the one who concludes this entire book by saying "Fear God and keep his commandments as this is the entire duty of man" (12:13).

Now that your caught up, or maybe reminded, let's look at the last verses of chapter 6 of the book of Ecclesiastes.

¹⁰ Whatever exists has already been named,
   and what humanity is has been known;
no one can contend
   with someone who is stronger.
¹¹ The more the words,
   the less the meaning,
   and how does that profit anyone?

 ¹² For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

This is kind of a depressing section.  Basically it reads, "it doesn't really matter what you do; there is always someone stronger; the more you do the more you lose when you die; life is short and meaningless".
Have you ever felt this way?  Have you ever felt like no matter what you choose to do, it just doesn't make a difference.  Why make any decisions at all right?  After studying this passage I think there are two things to note.  First, that there is a decision that we must make, and second, that there is a decision that we must relinquish.

First, a decision we must make.  Everyone on earth is faced with a decision that is literally the most important decision they will ever make in their life.  The crazy thing is, most of those people have made up their mind and don't even know it.  That decision is whether or not to follow Jesus Christ.  Many people have decided to follow him, many others have been faced with that decision and chose not to and others still have chosen a different religion to follow without fully knowing that they are simultaneously rejecting Christ.  This is why evangelism needs to be stressed in the church; because there are people who have never even heard of Jesus Christ!  That said, we are all faced with the decision of who to make the Lord of our life.  Some choose money, some their job, others Allah, Buddha, tradition, ancestors, science, and some of course Jesus.  For those of you who have chosen something other than Jesus, I would like to simply present why I think making the decision to follow Christ is not only the most important decision of your life, but also the best.

Following Jesus Christ is not a choice I made because I like rules, or because my parents made me, or because hell sounded really lame so I thought I would get some fire insurance.  While hell is lame, and my parents did play a role in my decision, my choice to follow Christ was based on me seeing a real need for Christ.  What do I mean by this?  Let me begin from the beginning.  As a Christian I believe that God created everything.  I also believe that God is perfect and also perfectly just.  This means that God is the opposite of sin, the opposite of evil, and his justness means that anything not perfect cannot be in his presence.  In fact, he is just so therefore he punishes evil, he punishes sin.  I believe that God created man, however he created man to be intelligent and to be able to make decisions on his own.  Because of this, the first man and women, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and thus committed the first sin.  Since then, man has been under this curse of sin and unfortunately it means that man must be punished because God is a just God who must punish evil.  If he allowed evil people to not be punished he would not be very just would he?  We wouldn't like it if a judge let criminals go free right?  What I failed to mention earlier however is that God also loves perfectly, and because of this love, he made a way for man to make themselves right with him.  That is where Jesus comes in.  Jesus Christ came to this earth as a man and lived a perfect life, something we cannot do!  He then became a perfect sacrifice when he was executed on the cross.  Since he was without sin, he was able to die in place of our sin.  See, God in the old testament had installed sacrifices into Jewish society to atone for sin.  The sinless animal became a scapegoat for the sin.  Jesus did this same thing however he was a sinless human and thus died in place of all mankind.  Jesus' death forgave the sins up until that point but when he resurrected from the dead after three days, he overcame death and since he lives he is a never-ending flow of forgiveness.
So the reason I chose Christ is because I looked at my life and could see the brokenness, I could see the sin and knew that this separated me from God.  By choosing to follow Christ, I accepted the gift that had been placed in front of me, the gift of forgiveness of sins.

Jesus has died and risen and thus the gift of forgiveness of sins and rightness with God is there for the taking.  The last part of my explanation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is what you decide.  It is your response.  Do you choose to accept forgiveness of sins and thus make yourself right with God or do you reject that gift and remain in your current state, separate from God and sinful in his eyes.  In my opinion it is the most important decision you will ever make because it truly is life or death.

Secondly, for those of us who have made the decision to follow Christ,  I think there is a decision we must relinquish.  Look back to the text if you would.  In verse 10 Solomon writes, "no man can contend with one who is stronger than he".  Then in verse 12: "who can tell him what will happen under the sun after he is gone?".  God is stronger than us and only God can tell us what will happen in the future.  Since God is in control of our lives, our futures and that of the world, we need to trust him in that.  This means that we need to relinquish the decision, if not the lifestyle, of fret and worry.  As Christians we need to live in this world, but remember that we are in fact citizens of heaven.  This is a hard thing to balance because obviously we have things such as taxes and jobs that we must maintain now, but nonetheless I think we still need to keep a focus on our end goal; heaven.  What does that look like?  Here are a few practical things that came to my mind.

1. Trust God with your life.  Trust him with your grades, your job, your uncertainties, your health, your family, everything.  He is in control no matter how good or how bad things get.
2.  Keep your focus on Christ and on heaven by not becoming attached to things of this world.  Give your money, your time and your possessions.  I am constantly impressed and encouraged by seeing this in the people at Hinson Baptist Church while working on youth staff the last 2 years.  People buying kids lunch, giving time to help teach or set up, simply showing Christ's love and their detachment to this world through the act of giving.
3.  Get to know God.  Read his word.  We as humans seem to have an unlimited amount of time for video games and Facebook but yet struggle to read even a chapter of the Bible.  Its funny how people can't put down a good book but are so eager to put down the "Good Book".
4.  Keep your hands open to Christ.  This doesn't mean sell all your possessions and sell your house and move to a remote place (although maybe you'll do that someday!) but keep your hands open so that God has access to those things.  If you hold a pencil in a clenched fist, the pencil is yours and no one can take it.  If you place the pencil on an open palm however, the pencil is still yours, but it can be taken.  This is the same with your life on earth.  If you hold onto it with clenched fists, God could be calling you to something but you won't let go of what you have.  If your hands are open however, God can use them.  He might take them, but he always has your best interest in mind, and when you're truly serving God, even if he takes them you will still find joy because your hands were open to him taking those things in the first place.

We can't contend with God.  He has control of our lives so we need to open our hands to him and relinquish our worries and our fears.  We need to give him access to anything and everything we have including our possessions, our comfort, our children, everything.  If he takes something away from your clenched fists, it will be so much more painful than if he takes it away form your open hands.

It is finals week so it is easy for me to worry about my grades.  However, I know that God has got me this far and I know that whatever grades I get, I am still going to be able to follow him, to obey him and to share him and thus I'm completing his plan for my life.