Well, here we go with another year of challenges sprinkled with victories. As we stepped into 2021, you may have paused to ask, “Lord, What will this year bring?” We make resolutions, lay out strategies to instill hope, attempting to pump up our endorphins and dopamine levels to feel better about life and to help us make it through another year. We look to prophetic voices trusting they will declare a word of encouragement and hope that this will be a terrific year and all will go well. I’ve certainly entertained these strategies at times myself, especially when I had experienced deep loss and needed great hope. But in truth, even though we may declare and make resolutions to experience hope, adventure, joy, surprises and excitement while fulfilling our dreams, life will also undoubtedly bring challenges, battles, disappointments, sadness, and loss. So you may be saying, somewhat sarcastically, “Great message Becky!”
I’m not here to pop bubbles, but if you read and study scripture it doesn’t take long to understand that life has always been teeming with challenges. If we gain wisdom through our life experience as some suggest, then we can identify with Ecclesiastes which speaks of not only the vanity and striving in life, but also the sadness or pain - 1:18 states: “Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.” Your life may seem like a large slinky, stretched and spiraling round and round with a rhythmic pattern of rotations. Year after year cycling through this magnificent and yet perplexing journey called life, with daily chores, household schedules, work schedules, play schedules and appointments, sprinkling a few plans for fun or refreshing including vacations, holidays and celebrations.
You see, Solomon, the possible author of Ecclesiastes tried wisdom and all forms of worldly pleasure too, including human achievement and the aspiration of great wealth and recognition. But he pessimistically concluded that all was emptiness as he scanned his works and observed the troubling injustice of life. We would probably diagnose him today as extremely depressed reading his wanderings as he touches on the grave and wrestles with the idea that whether man is rich or poor, he ends up as dust. How easy it is to become cynical and discouraged when we aspire to greatness and find it has not filled the hole in our heart. We may attempt do all the right things and yet in one unsettling moment everything we have worked for evaporates and we find our paradigms challenged. Even David cried out in his psalms asking God why do good men suffer and the wicked seem to prosper?
There is good news! After his search for life, the author of Ecclesiastes states his conclusion found in Ecc. 12: 13-14 to be the real source to the meaning of life – reverence for God. He states: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
The author recognized that he had left God out of the equation in his search for happiness and meaning. He recognized how life can seem unjust and meaningless without a relationship with God. Through his wanderings and wondering, he found a key to understanding. When God is at the center of your life, even through you may see or experience the mixture and injustice of life, you will align with heaven and be guided and secure in His divine purpose. You will also find comfort and peace as you grow in the understanding that the treasures of this world are but a vapor, compared to a life centered in God which holds an eternal treasure.
What great wisdom and resolution the author presents to us as we begin this year. and deal with recent events. Recognizing and returning to the only One who can truly fill the ache and hole in our hearts – our Father. King David declared in Psalm 27:1 - “The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?” Throughout scripture we are continually encouraged to have faith and trust in Him. We don’t always understand His ways, but we can always choose to trust. The author of Psalm 71 in verses 5-8 reflects (speculation is this was spoken from an aging David):“For you are my hope, Adonai Elohim, in whom I have trusted since I was young. By you I have been sustained from my birth; You who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you. I have become a marvel to many; for you are my strong refuge. My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all day long.”
No matter what may transpire in your future, may our Father continue to be your strong tower and refuge as well as your place of comfort and strength.
In His Love,
