Futility. It’s almost a law of human endeavor. The falling snow erases the shoveled path behind us. The miles erode away the car we’re still struggling to pay for. The bodies we sweat and bleed and weep to maintain grow old and fail nonetheless. No matter how well we did our job, no matter what how much we had saved for retirement, in the end all our treasures are buried with the body they could not keep alive.
Read More truth, futility, humannessThe world was an unknowable wilderness when our ancestors began to make their way in it. The nights were as dark as the bottom of the sea, and the stars had no names. We did not know what it was that broke twigs in the forest outside the ring of firelight, if it would be our friend or our devourer. We did not know what was bread and what was poison.
Read More creation, light, wildernessNo one is his own master. We were born to serve, and serve we do, whether we admit it or not. We sacrifice most of our lives at tasks not of our own choosing, struggling with boredom and exhaustion to pay for shelter, groceries, light and heat. Every adult learns that this is not a choice.
What remains a choice is how we serve, and in who’s name.
Read More service, labour, masterThe world that is, is not what was intended to be. We were meant to eat without having to wrestle our bread from the earth, to build without breaking our bodies to do it, to love without our hearts being broken. But the world was warped and broken by sin, and all things were bent away from their original intention. Death crept in through the cracks that had opened in the universe, and with it came things that were never meant to be: sickness and war, and famine and disease.
Read More redemption, brokennessChristians are often criticized for ignoring the problems of the world and focusing on some magical future free from pain. The common misconception is that we are so preoccupied with our future happiness that we are content to close our eyes and wait for death as the world burns down around us. But in fact the opposite is true: We believe our life in this brief and fading world has meaning because there is more to come.
Read More meaning, life after death, bodiesWe are living in the golden age of communication. If we are seized by a notion we wish to share, within three minutes we can have it published worldwide, effortlessly and for free. It’s an incredible privilege never before afforded the human race, but instead of being awed by our power to communicate ideas with one another, we’ve lost our respect for it.
Read More internet, words, spellingHelpless beings in a meaningless world: this is Solomon’s appraisal of the human race. Again and again throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, these are adjectives he uses to describe us, slaves and kings alike. We stumble about, blind, naked and without understanding. With all our art we try to conjure a meaning behind our lives.
Read More gospel, helplessness, intelligenceThere is such a thing as disaster. The structure of things collapses, suddenly and without warning. The market crashes and your forty years’ security is erased. A dark spot appears on a routine x-ray. The child is miscarried. The father is killed by the roadside bomb, far away. There is such a thing as disaster, and grief that will not be comforted.
Read More disaster, faithWe live in a culture that worships good advertising, where the quality of anything matters less than how it is presented to its consumers. When good marketing becomes the highest virtue, everything becomes simply a product to be sold, including our own identities. You can be good and wise and virtuous but if you can’t play the game, can’t sell yourself, you will be outshouted and outshone by those who can.
Read More success, humility, image, advertising, authenticity