A GOOD FINISH May 30, 2020
Today’s devotional is from one of the Bible’s most (if
not the most) pragmatic books—Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Bible scholars say that where King Solomon
wrote the Book of Proverbs at the height of his wisdom and glory, he wrote the
Book of Ecclesiastes when his own family (children, wives, concubines, people)
broke down. And so we get to hear a bit
of a downer in many of its passages.
The chapter talks about things that would normally
turn one into a foul mood, but which the Teacher actually said are better than
the things that make us happy. The first
verse has him completing the sentence that the day of death is better than the
day of birth, to complete the first part of his sentence which says that a good
name is better than precious ointments.
One would understand from him that in a person’s life,
meaning can only be found at the end—that is, how the person has overcome the
adversities and challenges of life, and what kind of person he has become in
spite of them. Though there may be
joyful moments, but the Teacher warned humanity against over-indulging in
these, for these are fleeting. His
favourite word is vanity, and true indeed, life can only be measured by what a
person has learned, and how he has progressed over its many obstacles and
difficulties—not by the moments he felt good.
And those moments where one thinks are happy are soon
forgotten during times of adversity.
Just like many who have experienced the restricted and reduced life this
pandemic brings. No doubt we reminisce
the happy times we experienced during freer days, but the thought actually only
makes us more sad, not knowing if they may or may not happen again in the
future. We anticipate for happier times
ahead, but we are not certain whether they will come. It seems the Teacher wants us to focus on our
attitudes and convictions now, because these only will determine whether our
lives will have a better finish (verse 8).
And he completed the chapter with one of the most
grounded passages in Scripture: “...that GOD has made man upright; but they
have sought out many inventions” (verse 29).
This both acknowledges that without our Creator, we will never be here
(upright), but the sad part is many of us choose to go our own way—there is no
end to our many “inventions” to the point that we feel we have no need of GOD
anymore, or worse, that we feel we need not be accountable to Him because He
doesn’t exist.
And it might lack the wonderful rhythm of the Psalms
but the ending of the chapter points to us in these last days. How long will we acknowledge that all our
best efforts are actually useless without GOD in the picture? Even in this pandemic, the world was hyped by
several drugs touted by the world’s leaders as so-called effective, with millions
of funds poured into their research, only to be proven as not so by further
tests, and some are even actually found to be dangerous to human health. So many stimulus packages are poured into the
world’s economy, guidelines and rules were drafted by the best minds and are
already being implemented, but we haven’t yet seen the light at the end of the
tunnel. And every day, the infections
pile up, alongside the piling up of the unemployed and bankrupt businesses.
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