Read
The Future Is Known
16Everywhere on earth I saw violence and injustice instead of fairness and justice. 17So I told myself that God has set a time and a place for everything. He will judge everyone, both the wicked and the good. 18I know God is testing us to show us that we are merely animals. 19Like animals we breathe and die, and we are no better off than they are. It just doesn't make sense. 20All living creatures go to the same place. We are made from earth, and we return to earth. 21Who really knows if our spirits go up and the spirits of animals go down into the earth? 22We were meant to enjoy our work, and that's the best thing we can do. We can never know the future.
1I looked again and saw people being mistreated everywhere on earth. They were crying, but no one was there to offer comfort, and those who mistreated them were powerful. 2I said to myself, “The dead are better off than the living. 3But those who have never been born are better off than anyone else, because they have never seen the terrible things that happen on this earth.”
4Then I realized that we work and do wonderful things just because we are jealous of others. This makes no more sense than chasing the wind.
5Fools will fold their hands
and starve to death.
6Yet a very little food
eaten in peace
is better than twice as much
earned from overwork
and chasing the wind.
7Once again I saw that nothing on earth makes sense. 8For example, some people don't have friends or family. But they are never satisfied with what they own, and they never stop working to get more. They should ask themselves, “Why am I always working to have more? Who will get what I leave behind?” What a senseless and miserable life!
It Is Better To Have
9You are better having a friend than to be all alone, because then you will get more enjoyment out of what you earn. 10If you fall, your friend can help you up. But if you fall without having a friend nearby, you are really in trouble. 11If you sleep alone, you won't have anyone to keep you warm on a cold night. 12Someone might be able to beat up one of you, but not both of you. As the saying goes, “A rope made from three strands of cord is hard to break.”
Reflect
Christians 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.
In the book of Ecclesiastes we see exactly what life amounts to without the hope that Jesus died to bring us. The ancient Israelites of Solomon’s time did not believe that the body or the soul lived on after death, and through his words we see exactly what that would mean: that nothing we do matters, except in how it makes us feel. The quality of the moment is the only truth there is. Why struggle for justice, or for virtue, or for truth? What would be the point? The evidence is there before us: Things just happen. We are lucky or unlucky for a while on the earth, but in the end we are all just dead. There is no good ending to anyone’s story here on the earth. The greatest tale of courage and self-sacrifice is only a lesson in futility and despair if all the characters end as corpses.
But if there is something, anything, beyond the brief years our bodies breathe and bleed and walk the earth, then there is hope for a different ending than the one we see here, and a real and permanent meaning to our actions. Only if God exists and has an interest in us after our bodies have died, does it matter what we do with them while they are still living.
Respond
Dear Father God, You have promised life beyond death to those who love you. Thank you for this gift, and let it inspire me to share you yourself with others, that they might also share in it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Mike Bonikowsky
Mike Bonikowsky began looking at books as soon as he could sit up. Eventually he learned to read them, and has not been able to stop. One day he realized that people wrote the words in the books, and he began to write his own. He has not been able to stop that either. He lives with his wife and child in Melancthon Township, Ontario, where he writes his words in the basement.