"There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil... Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."
Huh? How can both of these statements be true? Actually, Ecclesiastes is full of these contrasts. In fact, reading Ecclesiastes is a bit like being on a teeter totter. So much futility; be hopeful! Mourn and weep; be joyful! Work hard; rest is important. Consider your options carefully; trust God and take the risk. Seeking knowledge is vanity; get wisdom.
The fact is, though, that the whole of life is like a teeter totter:
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time for love, and a time for hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace." (Eccl. 3:1-8)
Ecclesiastes, with all of its back-and-forth, give-and-take wisdom teaches us that those who want to live wisely will learn what is the proper time and the just way for everything: when to weep and when to sing, when to investigate every angle of a problem and when to take a leap of faith, when to bring on the feasting and when to live as simply as possible.
Of course, knowing which side of this tension to lean on at any given time is no easy feat. Most of us tend to like to sit comfortably on one side of the teeter totter or the other. When it comes to life, we prefer the safety of the black-and-white ground to that up-in-the-air feeling of grey issues, even if it means we live our whole life on one side of the park. We would love the author of Ecclesiastes to just come out and say, "When you are in exact situation X, do precisely Y." Or maybe we'd rather he just stuck to one side of the tension, so we didn't have to deal with the other. Then again, sometimes we realize that we've been a little too extreme on an issue and rather than gently re-balancing, we hurl ourselves upward with such force that we end up stuck on the other extreme. Tension is hard for us human creatures!
Now, to be clear, there are certainly things in the Bible that ARE black-and-white. The gospel is always true and always applies. There are things that are clearly sinful all the time, no matter what the circumstances. There are things that are always good, regardless of the situation. We have been given non-negotiables in life. But so much of the rest of life, ministry, relationship and leisure involves situation-specific wisdom that the Bible leaves room for wiggling on. And here is where things get tricky. When do I speak and when do I keep my mouth shut? When do I counsel someone to get married and when do I ask them to consider the gift of singleness? When do I give away all I have and when do I save for the future? When do I decide that it is unwise to associate with a certain person and when do I embrace those I don't agree with?
Here is where we desperately need the help of the Holy Spirit! We are not meant to make all these decisions on our own: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him." (James 1:5) "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you... When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you." (John 14:26,16:13-14) If we will live lives of true wisdom, we must be leaning in dependence on the Spirit of truth, seeking the help of the Helper to do what will ultimately bring most glory to Jesus.
And along with the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit, God gives us another gift to help us with these tensions: the church. All of us have natural tendencies and personal extremes, and unless pushed, we tend to stay where we are comfortable. But a gift of the church is that it is a diverse gathering of people of all kinds of tendencies, all kinds of extremes, all kinds of perspectives and backgrounds and experiences and cultures. And when we will allow the church to speak into our lives, to share wisdom where we perhaps are leaning too hard toward one extreme, we have the opportunity to gain balance and grow in wisdom. When we spend all our time with two or three very like-minded friends who never disagree with us (even if they are all very godly), we are far less likely to allow the teeter totter to move, because we won't even notice that there's another side. Living in community with a church of diverse individuals pushes us out of our inertia, and makes us realize how much we really do need the wisdom of God to truly live in a way that is pleasing to him.
Ecclesiastes shows us the (tricky) balance of wisdom, and invites us to fear God--which, indeed, is the beginning of true wisdom (more on that in the next post!).
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