24 A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26 To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
This quote is from Ecclesiastes one of my favorite books. A summary of one very wise man who looked at his world.
Some would view this book as a morose statement of our pointless toil, however I find it quite consoling and directional in that it points to our place in this world in a sobering way that forces us to ground ourselves in reality...we have 70 or so years to live and it must be worthwhile! All the pursuits we have available to us can leave us empty if we do not find our way to peace with our God who is jealous for our time...with him. This is to say that we can be privileged to worship him as it says in "Truth and Spirit."
Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that we (Jews) know who we worship. Do You? Have you found the one true God? I have been with those on their death bed and have watched them pass away with fear and doubt at the end of their life and still did not know. This is because I cared for them as a nurse and was inside a place to observe and see as the writer of Ecclesiastes did too. I was in a place to offer comfort and tell the truth as I knew it.
The first chapter of John 1 starts as follows:
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our[a] joy complete.
This is bold writing and it takes firsthand knowledge to do so. I think the writer of Ecclesiastes would say...wake up! Look around! Don't be blinded by all the "eye candy" (not women in this case) that there is! In other words, there is more to life than what meets the eye. The battle is to ignore the loudest calls like Odysseus and the Sirens! and find God, find your peace and place in him. Then all other "things" will fall into place.
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