Read
1Keep your Creator in mind while you are young! In years to come, you will be burdened down with troubles and say, “I don't enjoy life anymore.”
2Someday the light of the sun
and the moon and the stars
will all seem dim to you.
Rain clouds will remain
over your head.
3Your body will grow feeble,
your teeth will decay,
and your eyesight fail.
4The noisy grinding of grain
and the voices of singers
will be shut out
by your deaf ears,
but even the song of a bird
will keep you awake.
5You will be afraid
to climb up a hill
or walk down a road.
Your hair will turn as white
as almond blossoms.
You will feel lifeless
and drag along
like an old grasshopper.
We each go to our eternal home,
and the streets here are filled
with those who mourn.
6The silver cord snaps,
the golden bowl breaks;
the water pitcher is smashed,
and the pulley at the well
is shattered.
7So our bodies return
to the earth,
and the life-giving breath
returns to God.
8Nothing makes sense.
I have seen it all—
nothing makes sense.
Respect and Obey God
9I was a wise teacher with much understanding, and I collected a number of proverbs that I had carefully studied. 10Then I tried to explain these things in the best and most accurate way.
11Words of wisdom are like the stick a farmer uses to make animals move. These sayings come from a shepherd, and they are like nails that fasten things together. 12My child, I warn you to stay away from any teachings except these.
There is no end to books,
and too much study
will wear you out.
13Everything you were taught can be put into a few words:
Respect and obey God!
This is what life
is all about.
14God will judge
everything we do,
even what is done in secret,
whether good or bad.
Reflect
Nobody knows the true story of their life. We know the things we do and say, the actions that we choose to take while we are alive. But no one knows what effect these things have beyond the moment in which they are done. Decisions meant to be life-changing come to nothing, while thoughtless actions reverberate down through the decades.
The Teacher spends his twelve chapters elucidating a world in which nothing makes sense, in which cause is not tied to effect, where the outcomes are cruel and random. He describes a broken world, where key communications between Creator and created are cut off, a puzzle with missing pieces. We are living in the dark, acting out our small obediences and rarely seeing any result.
But there is a result and a consequence to everything we do, though we cannot see it now. To obey the ancient calling of an unseen God seems like foolishness and futility in the failing lights of our dying world. But there will come a time when the sun rises and the shadows flee away, and the true shape of the world will be revealed and the true story of the human race will be told. That is why the end of the Teacher’s wisdom is not to rely on our own understanding but on God’s. Only he can see through the darkness we exist in, and only by following the calling of his voice will we find our way home.
Respond
Dear God, Help us to live by your wisdom and not by our own. Help us to trust that you can see what we cannot. Let us hear your voice that calls us to our true selves and to the true story of our lives. 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.