Just How Long Are You Willing To Chase the Wind?
Good Morning Friends,
Human life and consciousness is indeed a peculiar thing. None of us asks to be born, and truth be told, none of us has much control over our lives. Yet we grow up thinking we can become masters of our own destinies. It seems that people have always oscillated between an overconfident mindset of mastery of their lives and a pessimistic cynicism that the world is against us and there is little we can do about it. When we start to think a bit about our existence, life can appear quite puzzling and mysterious. One thing is certain: life is a journey from cradle to grave with lots of questions along the way. Solomon contemplated it and wrote today’s scripture in response. And though it is not exactly about Hurricane Hunters or the adrenaline seeking scientists as in the movie Twister, it is about trying to grasp something that can be quite elusive. Unfortunately too many look for love in all the wrong places. We are addicted to entertainment and are still bored. Some of us try to stay amused to the point where we just laugh our way through life never really confronting its many pains and frustrations. Such attempts turn out to be in vain too. Others are daily aware of injustice, oppression and the cruel realities of our world. Whether young or old at this point we must ask what life is really about. Just How Long Are You Willing To Chase the Wind?
Scripture: Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been, in the ages before us. The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them. I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
Ecclesiastes 1:2-14 (NRSV)
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8 (NRSV)
Message: No use trying to hide the elephant in the room.
Information is pointless, Inspiration meaningless. Only transformation matters. Too many have material prosperity and spiritual poverty. Too few have purpose and meaning. We need God but the diversions are numerous. Solomon considers this vanity of engaging in anything, at any time, at any cost, as chasing after the wind and ultimately concludes after testing its possibilities as meaningless at the end. Still we seek for some real light along the world’s dark path. And at some point we might just discover that indulging in everything this world has to offer leaves us, as it did Solomon, empty and unfulfilled. So question the rationale behind everything but then realize that wisdom itself alone is meaningless. Toil is meaningless. Pleasures are meaningless. Advancement is meaningless. Riches are meaningless. But friends, have hope for we can still live a meaningful life even in a world filled with vain pursuits. Jesus did. Jesus did not build any buildings. Or write any books. He did not lead an army and did not own any significant possessions. He did not travel to far exotic places and did not have any influential earthly friends, but he did transform everything and that makes all the difference in heaven and earth. So what would God have us to do? Solomon was not in error when he made his observations…that things look pretty futile. They always have and until the return of Christ they likely always will. However the adage holds true, “The best way for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.” So friends, embrace the truth and stop chasing the wind. Find something to do to glorify God.
Pray the next time we are bored we do something to renew our minds. Pray we are active in the mind and spirit with vibrant inner lives that seek to glorify God. Pray we feel less need to fall back on external media and input. Pray we not spend all our energy on meaningless acts of trying to get ahead. Pray we realize that we will never fully know when the wind will blow nor what direction it will point. Pray we realize that we will never catch the wind for we cannot see it and only feel it slip through our fingers. Pray we put God into our daily activities. Pray we do something beautiful for God. Pray we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 