Protection of the Oppressed - Psalm 129

The Background

Tuesday nights are one of three Bible study nights for me. I like to keep busy, and moreover, I love to study the Word with like-minded believers my age. We want to not just know the Word but also how others are seeing the Word and what we can do to teach those around us.

So Tuesday, May 9, we talked about demon possession and oppression. The world moves in cycles, and one on repeat recently has been this heavy focus on the work of the demonic. Ephesians 6 tells us that our war is not against flesh and blood but powers and principalities and commands us to put on spiritual armor, the armor of God, to combat it. It’s fairly clear Paul speaks of the demonic and not in a sense that the works of demons will cease until the judgment day.

The Theology of Evil Activity

We began with the foregone conclusion that those born of the Spirit of God, who indwells all who profess belief in Christ through repentance, are forever marked safe from the act of demonic possession. God is light, and there is no darkness in Him (1 John 1:5). The forces of darkness cannot overpower the Holy Spirit of God, and, thus, they are incapable of forcing Him to move from the temple He has chosen to indwell in order to occupy it for themselves.

But we reached many conclusions within this conversation about the works of evil, first and foremost of which is the sovereignty of God. In Job, whether we see this as mere metaphor or true story, God is the author of Job’s blessings and the allowance for his suffering. It is He who says to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (Job 1:8).

Blameless, God calls him. There aren’t many in scripture who receive this distinction. Satan states Job’s righteousness is because of his blessings and seeks permission to take them away. God grants it, and so we have the book of Job. But there’s an important act to focus on. In order to touch Job or his blessings, Satan had to ask permission, and then God had to allow it. Sovereignty. Not even evil occurs without God’s okay. There are many tough theological nuts in here to crack, but I don’t have space for that here.

The understanding reached from this comes from many places. First, Paul’s declaration about the messenger of Satan he attempts to pray away thrice, and thrice, God refuses him. Second, Paul also writes in Romans 8:28 that all things work for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose (capitalization of “His” added by me). Third is Paul writing the reason this messenger of Satan is allowed to continue tormenting him: “to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Cor. 12:7). So we see that God allows the works of evil to afflict His beloved in order that He might sanctify them fully because it is for their good.

A friend of mine often says, “God will always trade the finite for the infinite.” I find this to be accurate to a Tee. Both Peter, James, and Paul write multiple times of present suffering for eternal glorification and reward. God works in this just as much as He does in blessing, and we can’t discount this from the OT either: Israel is constantly being left to experience evil temporarily in order that they might come closer to God for permanent rescue. The story of God’s work is using the evil and pain and hurt of the world in order to affect His people to come closer, and as they do, they find blessing.

The Endless Battle

So we finally come to Psalm 129 — in the HCSB, this psalm is entitled “Protection of the Oppressed.” Verses 1-2 say, “Since my youth they have often attacked me—let Israel say—Since my youth they have often attacked me, but they have not prevailed against me.”

I’ll bring Paul back for just a moment: daily, he was attacked by this messenger of Satan. Whatever this thorn was, it was constant, consistent, and debilitating enough that it could keep him from inflating in pride. If the attacks ceased, might Paul have become prideful? We don’t know, but the discussion was had that in all things, there is good to be had for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

I say all this to bring it back to what this psalm is titled and the information it carries: it is not “Deliverance of the Oppressed,” nor “Freedom for the Oppressed,” but “Protection of the Oppressed.” Now I’m aware that this psalm isn’t titled this way originally. But the scripture tells the same point. Nowhere in this psalm does it indicate that Israel permanently pacifies their enemy. Instead, it states they continued to attack, but they never prevailed.

The messenger of Satan against Paul never prevailed or we’d have a much smaller NT. Satan never prevailed against Job, for Job never once cursed God. He questioned, he struggled, and he cursed the day he was born, but Satan did not win Job’s curse. David was attacked by Saul over and over and over as he was inflicted by evil, yet David became the man after God’s own heart. In each case, a man was oppressed, and in each case, he was protected from turning away. His life was not stolen, and especially Job is very clear about that: Satan was allowed to touch Job, to inflict him with illness, but his life was not on the table.

Everything in a believer’s life works for ultimate good. You may be oppressed, whether by the work of the demonic or your own fleshly desires, but have these things stolen you from God? If not, you are protected. If you still seek God; if you still praise Him for His goodness; if you are still His (for who can pluck you from His hand?) then you are protected. You may be attacked ceaselessly, but driving back the attack and continuing to serve the Lord is a victory in and of itself.

How's Your Prayer?

What’s it like for you to pray? I don’t think we ponder that enough, at least, I don’t. And that’s a shame because prayer is one of the things that believers should do the most, right along with reading your Bible, so it’s something that should be heavily considered.

A few years ago, I had a non-Christian friend who I spent quite a lot of time around suddenly ask me why I prayed over my food before eating, and what I prayed about. It was an odd question, so I told her, then asked why she brought it up, and her response kind of struck me a little dumbfounded. She said, “It looked like you were in pain, and a little angry.”

Three years later, that hit me. In the place I was at the time in my relationship with God, that facial expression could only have been revealing how I felt about prayer, about God, and about myself. That’s why I think it’s important to reflect on how we approach prayer and the other necessities of a relationship with Christ, it provides a good example of how our relationship is progressing or stagnating.

To put it in a human perspective, it’s like finding yourself dreading to speak to your best friend, your boyfriend/girlfriend, or your spouse. The feelings that come along with the actions you’re meant to take in a relationship are indicative of the health of that relationship. But it’s not the feelings you get that are the problem, it’s when you don’t try to fix them that issues arise.

Before I go too much farther, I want to clarify a few things because one of the things that bothers me about bloggers and podcasters is when they discuss a deep and difficult subject like this but only from one angle, leaving readers and listeners confused about what’s right and what isn’t. I do not mean that you should not pray or read your Bible just because an emotional desire to do so is not there, or because your emotions are in turmoil. Regardless of your feelings, pursuit of a relationship with God is a choice that must be made—I’ve mentioned this before and have a whole blog post on it here: nathanielgevans.net/blog-1/when-motivations-gone.

I’m not even talking about the mindset we must approach prayer and Bible study with, though the Bible does discuss that in many places, and I’m willing to analyze both of those topics. I’m talking about an introspection regarding your emotional and mental health that should be ongoing as you pursue God. I’m talking about self-counseling, and therapy if necessary, like you might do if you’re struggling emotionally with your spouse in your marriage. I’m talking supporting your choice to follow God with the emotions that come from loving the God who loves you.

Okay, now we can jump into things. It’s a fact of the matter that we devote energy to the things we desire; we even impart some of our emotional wellbeing into those things. An athlete puts energy and emotion into his/her sport. That’s why it’s devastating when they lose a tournament. A reader puts energy and emotion into stories—that’s why they are able to empathize with fictional characters. A musician to music, an artist to painting, etc.

The Bible does confirm this in Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure lies, there will your heart be also.” You devote your heart to the things you consider treasure. With devotion of the heart comes emotion. When you give your loyalty to someone or something, your heart and mind work together to establish rewards for your actions and punishment for your inaction. That’s a really brief and simplified version of how hormones are expressed via brain rerouting.

There are a million ways to describe how that works, but it’s most easily done in a relationship context. When you devote yourself to a person, to making them happy, to enjoying time with them, your brain secretes hormones that support those actions, your emotions follow along with the loyalty and love you give them. That’s where the idea of heartbreak comes from: when you’ve spent time and energy into developing pathways for those hormones to be secreted, suddenly being in a position where you’re no longer experiencing those feelings due to a breakup creates pain from that loss.

There’s so much truth and wisdom in Matthew 6:21, just that short sentence, that I could probably break it down and explain it out over a novel length, but I’ll keep it short by breaking down the reverse. If your heart’s not in it, it’s not something you treasure.  If you’re only doing something just to do it, because you’re supposed to, required to, expected to, you don’t care about it.

That’s going to hurt some people. But it’s true, no matter how much you rebel against it. There are a lot of people out there who have a relationship with God but don’t treasure it. There are a lot of people who go to church, read their Bibles, pray every day, but don’t really mean it. There are people who can talk the talk all week long, but their feet just don’t move. I know. I was one of those people. I was one of those people for so long that I never truly experienced what a relationship with God was until I was 22 years old.

Here’s the big breakdown of the point I mean: do you truly appreciate, love, and desire your relationship with God? Do you know the emotions that were likely running through the minds of people when Martin Luther oh-so-dangerously declared that people don’t need to go through a priest to speak to God, to learn from God? I don’t know them, but I can imagine: there was likely unbridled joy. I’m sure many stopped to pray without ceasing knowing that God could hear them. I bet many tore up their Bible translations they were suddenly allowed to read from how much they studied it.

In that regard, how do you treat your prayer time, your Bible time? Is it something you rush through because you need to do it? Are you merely performing the physical acts out of an obligation? Or are you devoting your heart to it like it’s something you treasure?

Approaching the Lord

The first seven verses of Ecclesiastes chapter five express the need to approach God and your relationship with Him with caution. As with any significant relationship, our relationship with God is one that must be intentional and guarded so that we do not cause any undue issues.

And, in fact, this must be stressed more so with God because He is perfect and just and has a standard higher than we can ever reach, unlike our earthly relationships. You can’t afford to be lackadaisical when it comes to being righteous. Even though God forgives when we ask, the damage that it can do to you on Earth is significant.

The first verse opens up with how our relationship with God should look; it should not be something that is done by obligation, but by obedience and desire. It describes a mindset with which we should chase after God. “Guard your step when you go to the house of God. Better to draw near in obedience than to offer the sacrifice as fools do, for they are ignorant and do wrong.”

I’d like to note that my Bible version translates the Hebrew word “shama” differently than most versions, which use “to hear” or “to listen” in place of “obedience” in mine. However, the meaning remains the same. The use of obedience in my translation likely serves to highlight the difference between the “this or that” proposition Solomon was making here.

The two options when you approach God as Solomon presents them are “to hear/listen/be obedient” or “to talk/do/sacrifice.” You can either come to God with a heart of obedience that desires to do what He would have you do, or you can come before Him with a heart that says, “Look, I recognize that you’re God and all, but I’m just going to do what I want.” This is a cautionary statement to not let your own desires be placed higher than God’s calling for your life.

This is quite similar to the introspective actions we should take before partaking in communion, as indicated in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32. We must examine ourselves as we come to God, humbling ourselves before Him and recognizing who He is and who we are in comparison.

Verse 2 and verses 4-6 say, “Do not be hasty to speak, and do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. When you make a vow to God, don’t delay fulfilling it, because He does not delight in fools. Fulfill what you vow. Better that you do not vow than that you vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth bring guilt on you, and do not say in the presence of the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands.”

There are plenty of reasons why it’s important to not make promises to God beyond, but the main reason is that we can’t keep them. If you say, “I will not sin,” you will sin. If you say, “I will pursue you wholeheartedly for my entire life,” you will fail to do so in a moment of weakness. We’re not good enough to live up to our promises like that.

James 5:12 says, “But most of all, my brothers and sisters, never take an oath, by heaven or earth or anything else. Just say a simple yes or no, so that you will not sin and be condemned.”

But another reason is that God knows so much more than we do that it’s not worth trying to claim we will adhere to whatever our fickle minds decide on in this moment. Where our God is unchanging, we are constantly in a state of flux, moving from one desire to the next as fast as a hummingbird’s wings flap.

“God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few,” is pretty clear in meaning: you don’t know enough to make promises about what you will do. Let your words to God be, “Yes, I will do as you say.” You don’t need more than that. He knows your heart, anyway.

One final reason, if the first two don’t satisfy your curiosity, stems from the fact that God is omniscient, all knowing, and sometimes the consequences of your vows to satisfy your own desires don’t turn out for your benefit. A great example comes from Jephthah in Judges 11.

Jephthah, following pagan customs, proposed a bargain with God in order to win a battle against the Ammonites. Why, exactly, he chose to make this bargain when the Spirit of the Lord was with him is unclear to me, but the results of the vow were very clear. The bargain was that the first thing that came out of Jephthah’s house when he returned home from his battle with the Ammonites would be sacrificed to God. Unfortunately for him, the first thing that came running out of his front door was his only child, his only daughter.

Had he remembered who God was and what strength was given to him by the Lord’s divine power, he would not have lost his only daughter because he was too quick to speak to the Lord. (Granted, I’m not saying every time you make a promise to God, something like this will happen, but you should know that our God is a just God, and your words have power, meaning. Failing to go through with a promise is a lie to God, and His punishment must be just. I think I speak for us all when I say that I’m thankful He is also a forgiving God and Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins.)

There are a ton of verses on guarding your mouth, guarding your speech, guarding your tongue, but the one I like most is certainly in verse 6: “Do not let your mouth bring guilt on you.” Don’t let what you say make you guilty before God.

My dad is rather fond of this saying, and we can, and should, all take this to heart a little more: “Better to keep your mouth closed and let everyone think you’re a fool than to open it and prove that you are.” The tongue is a betrayer, it’s lashing at the bit to make you mess up—it cannot be tamed and made to say only what is good. Sometimes, the best thing for us to do is shut up.

Finally, verses 3 and 7 say, “For dreams result from much work and a fool’s voice from many words. For many dreams bring futility, also many words. So, fear God.”

This is fairly simple, yet complicated at the same time, but the essence of the message is that rewards come from effort, not from words. It’s very much like our common phrase “If you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.” If you’re going to talk the talk of being obedient to Christ, you must then walk the walk He has set before you. The rewards come from actually doing what He says, not from saying you’re going to do it.

Verse 7 leans its meaning more towards the ideas expressed in verse 2 about God being in Heaven and us on Earth. Humans, especially compared to God, have an incredibly small attention span. It’s so small that I probably lost eighty percent of the people who clicked on this article by now. We are so easily distracted that when we try to decide what we’re going to do instead of listening to God’s plan, we change our minds 300 times in the span of our lives. Why? Because we don’t know what God knows.

We’re like a child who is presented with five of their favorite desserts but is told they can only choose one of them. That child is going to point at the first, then the second, then the third, and so on, over and over and over again without ever actually sticking to a choice. Then, that child will attempt to eat all of them instead of choosing.

We are too fickle to decide what we will do. That’s why, when we approach God, we should approach Him with obedience and our ears open to hear what He has to say to us, then we should endeavor to do as He asks with as much effort as we can give because that’s where the rewards come from.

Success and Companionship

The second part of Ecclesiastes chapter 4 in my personal Bible is titled “The Loneliness of Wealth,” and I don’t know about y’all, but that hits deep.

There’s a song by Brandon Heath titled “It’s No Good to be Alone,” and one of the lines from that song says, “You know it doesn’t matter how high you climb if no one’s there to share the ride when you get there.” (You can listen to this song down below.) To me, this sums up the pursuit of wealth as an ideal, and really, the pursuit of a lot of things on this Earth. Humans have a need for companionship, for socialization. God knew this at the beginning. It’s why he created Eve for Adam.

We were designed to have perfect companionship with God and other people, but sin entered the world and that perfection in companions was lost. Things like jealousy began to intervene as soon as Cain and Abel. It’s interesting to me that Solomon touches on that subject right off the bat when he starts talking about wealth in-depth.

Verse 4 says, “I saw that all labor and all skillful work is due to a man’s jealousy of his friend. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

Why do you want to be wealthy? I don’t think anyone says they want to be wealthy for a pure, selfless reason, though I admire anyone who can truthfully say that’s the case for them. Likely, the reason you want money is to satisfy your desire for what you’ve seen others have. You want that nice car, the big house, the boat for the lake, a new set of golf clubs, your own personal library, an in-ground swimming pool, a massive yard, the ability to fly to Hawaii for a week-long vacation, or even something as small or simple as your friend’s easy to use and fantastically clever coffee machine.

Regardless, the point is that you want something you don’t have. You’re jealous of someone else’s possessions, so you work to get what they have that you don’t. But obviously such a thing is futile because getting what they have won’t satisfy you. Speaking personally, I’ve bought things my friends had because I thought they were cool, and within two weeks I was bored of it completely. After a brief honeymoon period with that item, it just became a waste of money.

Verses 7-8 say, “Again, I saw futility under the sun: There is a person without a companion, without even a son or brother, and though there is no end to all his struggles, his eyes are still not content with his riches. ‘So who am I struggling for,’ he asks, ‘and depriving myself from good?’ This too is futile and a miserable task.”

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “It’s lonely at the top.” And that’s a pretty true standard in the world we live in. It’s cutthroat. To get to the top, you often have to cut others down and climb the mountain of metaphorical bodies to reach higher than those who lost to you. It’s a grim image, I know, but it’s a grim reality. When you strive solely for wealth and career, you have to give up everything else, including making relationships with other people.

As Solomon often does, he recommends a middle-of-the-line approach to this because extreme reactions in this area tend to not work well. Verses 5-6 say, “The fool folds his arms and consumes his own flesh. Better one handful with rest, than two handfuls with effort and pursuit of the wind.”

You should neither be lazy in the pursuit of wealth such that you rely totally on others to take care of you, and you should not pursue wealth so fervently that you do not take time apart from that ambition to spend in other areas.
Rest is important to us. Taking time away from our goals is important. All you achieve when you refuse to take breaks is stress and failure. To put it this way, a guy graduated my high school with a 5.2 GPA and got a full ride to Yale, but by graduation, he had given up hours and hours of sleep, likely a large portion of his social life, and created undue stress for himself to the point his hair was graying as a high school graduate. There’s no satisfaction in pushing yourself so hard that you hurt yourself.

A lot of this chapter actually leans towards a saying many of us have heard often: “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”

Verses 9-12 say, “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up. Also, if two lie down together, they can keep warm; but how can one person alone keep warm? And if somebody overpowers one person, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

It’s about how you achieve your goals. How you overcome your struggles. How you lean on God and your companions. This is why you need others by your side in this life. We’re not capable of doing this life on our own. We’re just not. There will be times when we are unable to stand under our own power, but by sharing our burdens with our friends, we can lift the weight pressing down on us. But if you don’t have anyone there when you’re being crushed by a burden, you’ll be saddled with that weight for good.

The cord example Solomon provides is actually such a great illustration even today. Let’s expand on it:

Now, I’m not the most knowledgeable when it comes to ropes and cords, but I do know that, essentially, the more strands a rope has, the stronger it is. That’s because, to break a cord made of three intertwined strands of rope, you have to create a force greater than the strength of all 3 strands combined, rather than just the individual strength of one strand because the strands compensate for each other and share the burden of weight. So, if one rope can hold ten pounds, then a cord with three strands that rope can hold 30 pounds, basically.

This works because of the distribution of force and tensile strength. I won’t get into a detailed explanation, but I’ll try to express the essence of it. A rope fails at a point that gets stretched too far for it to hold onto itself any longer. This weak point, however, can be negated, in a cord with multiple strands of rope. The multiple strands of rope work to distribute the force better such that the tensile strength of each individual strand increases. That weak point on each strand gets stronger because when one strand takes up too much force, it can pass some of that force on to the second and third strand.

So, bringing that back around to the comparison: where you would snap under the load, intertwining yourself with a companion or two will help you hold strong under weight you wouldn’t be able to carry alone. Now that I’ve beaten that horse six feet under, let’s move on.

One of the more important functions of companionship is the ability to have a somewhat objective view on decision making. Your friends serve as people whom you can and should be accountable to and who can help you see things from perspectives that you wouldn’t consider. This idea is all over the New Testament and within the Christian community, so I don’t need to touch on it too much, but Solomon mentions it here in verse 13, “Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer pays attention to warnings.”

It’s better to be have good friends who can advise you than it is to be wealthy and think the advice of others is beneath you. To broaden it a bit, it’s better to avoid thinking wealthier or more influential people are superior to others because of their lot in life. A poor man can be just as wise as a rich man. A mildly successful friend is just as good as a wildly successful friend.

But even more so, Solomon stresses the idea that recognition does not come from wealth. Verses 14-16 say, “For he came from prison to be king, even though he was born poor in his kingdom. I saw all the living who move about under the sun follow a second youth who succeeds him. There is no limit to all the people who were before them, yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

Even the most heroic stories of prevailing against unfortunate circumstances won’t get you true companionship by its own merits. As soon as one successful person is gone, another will rise up in their place and the people will jump on that bandwagon. That’s why good, loyal companions are more valuable than wealth. People who will never abandon you are a rock on which you can find strength, even if they aren’t the rock on which your foundation should be built. Wealth can be lost in a moment, but a good companion will stick by you through rich and poor.

Listen to It's No Good To Be Alone on Spotify. Brandon Heath · Song · 2011.

God Works Differently

Have you heard the phrase, “God answers prayers in three ways: yes, no, and not yet?” It’s fairly accurate and a good way to comfort those who feel like they aren’t hearing from God at a time when they feel lost or are asking something of Him.

But sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayers the way we expect. Sometimes, His yes looks different than our own. Occasionally, He points our lives in directions we never even considered to go. Often, when we expect giant miracles, we overlook the small, but equally useful, ones God provides. And when that happens, we can respond one of two ways: we can accept His direction and receive the blessings that come, or we can rebel against it because it’s not what we thought he was going to do.

This is the situation that a man, Naaman, in 2 Kings found himself in when he went to the prophet Elisha to be cured of a skin disease. Naaman’s story is a classic example of how we often find ourselves dealing with God.

When Naaman heard of a way to have his skin disease healed, he immediately took off to find Elisha and receive that healing, but when he got there, Elisha told him something he didn’t expect.

2 Kings 5: 10-12 says, “Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, ‘Go wash seven times in the Jordan and your flesh will be restored and you will be clean.’ But Naaman got angry and left, saying, ‘I was telling myself: He will surely come out, stand and call on the name of Yahweh his God, and will wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease. Aren’t Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?’ So he turned and left in a rage.”

Naaman’s expectation was that of a showy miracle the likes of which Elijah had performed when he called down fire in the challenge against the prophets of Baal. As the Bible says, he was expecting Elisha to make a big show of things to heal him. He was expecting something different, out of the ordinary. But what he got instead was, essentially, “go take a bath.” It would have been considered a ritualistic bath, but it was a bath nonetheless. And, contextually, the river Jordan might not have been the cleanest river to go bathe in, anyway.

So, because Naaman didn’t get what he expected, he basically stormed off in a rage. For a lot of people, the story would end here. Many of us would likely have a prayer answered in a way we didn’t like and we’d ignore the answer, missing out on all the blessings that would have come from it. Thankfully for Naaman, he had some very good servants.

Verse 13 says, “But his servants approached and said to him, ‘My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more should you do it when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean?’’”

They basically called him out on his idea of what a miracle should look like. The weird thing about all this is that if Elisha had asked him to do something ridiculous to be healed, like, for example, to catch and kill 37 chickens and cut off one toe from each foot, slather them in oil, pin them together and wear them as a headdress for three years, Naaman would likely have done it without hesitation. But because it was something so simple as “go take a bath,” he thought it wouldn’t do anything and wasn’t worth his time.

But his servants convinced him, and verse 14 says he went, dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, and was healed of his skin disease.

But it’s not just one person, or even just a few people, who do this. When Jesus, the son of God was born and walked the Earth, people refused to believe he was who he said he was, not because he didn’t perform miracles, but because they expected God to grant them a warrior king who would slaughter Israel’s enemies and bring about the restoration of the Israelite nation. But because they got the Jesus who wanted to save and not the Jesus who wanted to destroy, they refused to acknowledge his claim as the son of God.

I’ve said similar before, but as believers, we are far too willing to lean on God working miracles in the fashion of deus ex machina, wherein He does these massive miracles that are grandiose and spectacular in every way when, really, God works intricately for the good of those who live Him. We expect God to step in and fix all the bad things that go on in the world like he didn’t place millions of tiny miracles, His people, on Earth to do it for Him.

We are all too ready to ignore the small things because they don’t necessarily look like what we expect God to do for us. And we are all so reluctant to do small things because they don’t seem grandiose enough. But what if we didn’t? What if we stepped up when we were called? What if we stopped looking for what we want God to do and start looking for what He is actually doing?

If you change your mindset about how God works, you’ll find that you’re far more blessed than you think you are. You’ll see God doing so much that you never would have noticed. He’s always working; you just need to be looking in the right place.

As a final note, take a listen to the song attached below. Strive to change your mindset to think of life this way, to realize that you are one of God’s miracle workers who is here to do the good He has called you to do. Do something with that.

Listen to Do Something on Spotify. Matthew West · Song · 2012.

Healing is Uncomfortable

On Sunday, my pastor preached about healing with the main focus being what Jesus asked a sick man at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem (John 5:6) “Do you want to get well?” And the sermon hit home with me, so I wanted to share it in my own words here.

Sometimes, we become far too comfortable in our character flaws. It’s a lot easier to tell people “Oh, I get angry pretty often,” or “My eye wanders too often to places it shouldn’t go,” or “Well, I just don’t mince words. I call it as I see it” than it is to fix the underlying issues: that you are an angry person, easily set off, that you lust after every attractive person you see, or that you are rude to people.

For me, it was always more comfortable to be angry at, and rude to, people who upset me or I didn’t feel comfortable around. I was standoffish and unwilling to become close to anyone because I was anxious. For a large part of my life, I didn’t handle people well, and I convinced myself it was just part of my character. It was easier to get angry at people than it was to confront other thoughts and emotions when they asked for forgiveness. It was easier for me to get upset than it was to think about what happened in their life recently to cause them to act that way.

But after confronting those things and working to change how I react to people, I’ve found myself settling into my new behaviors and living far more at ease with those around me than I ever did before. It sucked at first; things were always awkward, and I probably made myself look silly a few times, but I got past the embarrassment and discomfort and became more like Christ.

We act like our sins are part of who we are as if nothing’s wrong because we’ve lived with them so long we don’t know who we’d be without it. But, specifically when it comes to sinful behavior, God calls us to rid ourselves of that, even though it’s uncomfortable, but you have to want it.

As with all facets of our faith in Christ, changing who you are to become who God wants you to be is a choice. There’s no magical change that’s going to happen in your life when you’re saved or when you ask God to confront your sinful behavior that will immediately stop you from sinning. You have to actively choose every moment to not partake in that behavior anymore until the new action becomes more ingrained and natural than the old.

And that’s why Jesus asked the man if he wanted to get well. The man in John 5 had been sick with his malady for 38 years. That’s 16 years longer than I’ve been alive. He had all that time to grow comfortable and live with whatever it was that kept him from walking, working, and doing daily activities that most people did. He likely had few to no responsibilities. He probably never did anything on his own.

So, it was probably more of a dilemma that we all thought when Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well?” He had to confront within himself whether he’d rather finish out his life living as he did where he had others to take care of him and nothing to do but live and relax or deal with the pain and discomfort that would likely come from learning how to walk again, dealing with moving muscles and joints that hadn’t been exercised in 38 years, getting a job, providing for himself, paying taxes and tithes, etc.

Now, the Bible doesn’t tell us what happened with this guy after he was healed, but I can at least tell you what would’ve happened physically. Given time, the man would beat the pain and awkwardness of learning to walk after 38 years of not being able to. His legs would’ve become comfortable with the movements, and not only would his quality of life have been greatly improved thanks to his walking, he would find so much more enjoyment in living. He would’ve been able to go out with his friends, take a walk at sunset and see God’s beautiful creation, or pick up a hobby.

What we’re dealing with in behavior change looks like this: a false comfort in sin, discomfort through change, and then perfect comfort in Christ. As I’ve said frequently in other articles, sin is not fulfilling, but Christ is, and in fact, He overflows you with fulfillment. While change invites discomfort, once you reach the top of the hill, things become so much better.

I know when I first read this chapter, I thought the question was kind of silly. Of course he’d want to be well, I’d thought. But when I considered it this way, I realized how important of a question it was. To become more like Christ, you have to want it, and you have to choose it all the time, even, and especially, when it’s uncomfortable.

It will be uncomfortable for awhile. Healing usually is: as cuts heal and scar, they itch; as your body fights off disease, you get a fever; and as your heart and mind change, you deal with discomfort as well. But once it’s all said and done, you’ll find you’re much better off having gone through the healing than you were living in the sickness.

Wisdom and Commission

Wisdom, and the knowledge of faith, are somewhat undervalued in today’s Christianity. With that, I also believe that we undervalue living life separate from the world and how that impacts the people in our lives, and even those who are not part of our lives.

Many Christians today live far too much like the culture we find ourselves in. With the exception of some standouts, so many of us live as a part of the world five or six days a week and only turn to God on Sundays and Wednesdays. But people talk about that all the time. I’m just going to give you an example of what happens when you don’t.

If you’ve ever read 1 or 2 Kings, you’d know the current king of Israel had a huge impact on whether or not his people followed God or turned to idolatry. Solomon was no different. In 1 Kings 10, a foreign queen appeared in Solomon’s court after hearing about his fame and wisdom in connection with God. When she arrived, she tested him with numerous, difficult questions about his faith, and she found answers to all the questions she had. It was so different and amazing that the Bible says it took her breath away.

In our faith, we do not get to specialize. We cannot allow ourselves to only be consistent and good at one part of our walk with Christ. You have to be able to walk separate from the world just as well as you can speak about the gospel. You have to be able to defend against questions just as easily as you can recite John 3:16 from memory. Why? For situations such as the one Solomon found himself in. It’s an integral part of the Great Commission.

1 Kings 10:1 says, “The queen of Sheba heard about Solomon’s fame connected with the name of the Lord and came to test him with difficult questions.”

Here’s the first part of the equation to having a well-rounded walk with Christ. Solomon was doing something so different that a queen who lived roughly 3,000 KM away from him heard about his wisdom and kingdom and its connection to God and traveled the entire distance with a massive retinue just to speak with him. Even by camel, it would’ve taken her roughly 75 days just to travel that distance as the crow flies—it might have been longer depending on travel routes.

Verse 2 says, “So Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too difficult for the king to explain to her.”

This is pretty impressive. The last part of verse 2 says that the queen asked Solomon about everything that was on her mind. Solomon could’ve been answering questions as complicated as space travel, how God exists outside of time and the connection of that to free will, quantum physics, or more. Okay, some of those could be a little exaggerated, but the point is that no matter what she asked about, Solomon had a satisfactory answer.

Now, you’re not expected to know everything about every subject; none of us come close to the wisdom of Solomon. But you are expected to know as much as possible about the Bible. We are supposed to read, understand, know, and use the knowledge and Wisdom God gives to us. Not just the NT or the OT. Not just the gospels or Paul’s letters. ALL of it.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

It even says why: so you may be equipped for every good work. So you can be prepared for any situation God presents you with. If you follow step 1 and live your life separate from the world, at some point, you will have to defend your faith, so make sure you’re prepared to do so.

Step 3 is to provide for those whom you lead. Our faith is not one that can be lived and practiced in isolation. Where it exists in you, it must also flow out to others.

Verses 8-9 say, “How happy are your men. How happy are these servants of yours, who always stand in your presence hearing your wisdom. May the Lord your God be praised! He delighted in you and put you on the throne of Israel, because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel. He has made you king to carry out justice and righteousness.” Verses and 4 and 5 also touch on Solomon’s care for the kingdom of Israel.

See, by virtue of Solomon’s faith and life lived for God extending beyond himself, it became evident that this wasn’t something that only Solomon could have. Solomon had the wisdom, but he was not the only one who had the love and providence of God. And because all the people of Israel had the love, joy, and providence of God, the queen of Sheba recognized this was something she could have as well.

Now whether the queen converted or not, the Bible is not fully clear. The verses seem to indicate that she could have, but we know for sure that she recognized God as a divine power because of Solomon’s life, wisdom, and actions towards the people of Israel.

The Great Commission says to go and make disciples, so go and make disciples. But how much more effective could you be in spreading the kingdom if, in addition to going to make disciples, you lived a life so clearly for God that you made people come to you just to see how you do it?

Israel is located near the town Gaza, while the queen of Sheba’s country is labeled “Saba.”)

Life is Empty

Ecclesiastes chapter 2 expands upon the pointlessness of earthly pleasures, going so far as to call everything achieved in this life emptiness. My personal Bible has subheadings for parts of the chapters, and three of them in this chapter are titled “The Emptiness of Pleasure,” “The Emptiness of Possessions,” and “The Emptiness of Work.”

It’s really interesting how Solomon hits on the three main things that we consider the largest vices in today’s times: pleasure: sex, partying, and the like; possessions: money, a house, nice cars, etc.; and work: a solid career, things built by your own two hands, and more. These three things are the trifecta of unfulfilling tragedy.

Let’s start examining the emptiness of these with pleasure. Verses 1-3 say, “I said to myself, ‘Go ahead, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy what is good.’ But it turned out to be futile. I said about laughter, ‘It is madness,’ and about pleasure, ‘What does this accomplish?” I explored with my mind how to let my body enjoy life with wine and how to grasp folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what is good for people to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.”

Sounds dreary, doesn’t it? It might even sound untrue to many. Because, surely, laughter can’t be madness! It’s happiness in a sound. It’s contentment. It’s joy. And pleasure absolutely accomplishes something! It gives happiness, comfort, and contentment. But do these things really do that? I say no, and here’s why.

Look at laughing from an outside perspective: how long does it last? When you laugh, you may go on for as many as few minutes, but when you’re done laughing, the effect is gone. Your eyes uncrinkle, your lips settle back into a relaxed position, and the sound of merriment is snuffed out. As soon as the moment has passed, so too has laughter. So too, has any benefit. It’s fleeting.

And what about pleasure? Parties, alcohol, foolishness. It all feels great temporarily, but what happens when you leave the party? When you sober up? When you face the consequences of your foolishness? All of what you experienced in the midst of these actions is gone. You break free of the monotony for a few moments, and then it comes right back.

Next is possessions. Verses 3-10 described all that Solomon gained in his life. He had houses, vineyards, gardens, parks, every kind of fruit tree, a whole irrigation system to water his trees, tons of servants, more cattle and sheep than he knew what to do with, silver, gold, and all kinds of treasures, his own private musicians, more than 700 wives and 300 concubines. As he says in verse 10, “All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. This was my reward for all my struggles.”

So, if there was any person to ever exist who could have found joy in things he owned, it was Solomon. Yet, he didn’t. Verse 11 says, “When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Even though he worked hard to get all those things, they weren’t worth it. I find that this part of Ecclesiastes fits really well with Mark 8:46, “For what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his life?” Clearly, it benefited Solomon in no way. As we know from the book of 1 Kings, he had the kingdom he presided over taken away from him and given to David for the things he owned and did.

And finally, we get to the emptiness of work. In verses 18-19, 23, it says, “I hated all my work that I labored at under the sun because I must leave it to the man who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will take over all my work that I labored at skillfully under the sun. (23) For all his days are filled with grief, and his occupation is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.”

Man, talk about dreary, yet again, with Ecclesiastes. But really, take some time to think about this. Personally, I’ve had those moments where I’ve thought deeply about my life on this Earth, having to wake up early in the morning, drive to work, work all day, drive home, work at home, and then sleep, just to do it again the next day. If I think too hard about it, I nearly have an existential crisis worrying about how meaningless those actions are. Just thinking about the monotony of it could drive me insane, and I doubt I’m the only one who has considered this.

Don’t you spend some nights wherein you consider just giving up going to work because you’re not accomplishing anything, anyway? That’s what Solomon’s talking about here. Solomon was wise and skilled at many things, and he dreaded the idea of passing on the achievements of his work to someone who would not do it as well as him. He dreaded it to the point that he dreaded doing the work, and he realized that there’s no point to it all.

Here’s the conclusion: Everything about this Earth and life on it is empty. Your happiness is empty because it cannot hold you up. Your possessions are empty because they are worth nothing in the grand scheme of things. Your work is worth nothing because after you’re gone, someone else will come along and ruin it. Not to mention that there’s nothing satisfying about the monotony of 50 years of a career.

As I’ve mentioned before about Ecclesiastes, its whole job is to drill it deep into your heart and mind that the things on this Earth cannot and will not satisfy you or bring you joy because its goal is to point you to the only one who can: God.

Let me tell you that I did not write all this down and post it online to disenfranchise you about life to the point you decide to do nothing with yours, and neither did Solomon write Ecclesiastes for this reason. In fact, now that I’ve made the point that you can’t find joy and satisfaction in these things, I’m going to tell you to go out and do those things anyway. Because while you can’t find joy and satisfaction in them, you can find happiness.

This is about perspective. In the long term, yes, this life means very little. But in the here and now, God has given us time here to do these things. I think Solomon says it best in verses 24-26:

“There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from Him? For to the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy, but to the sinner He gives the task of gathering and accumulating in order to give to the one who is pleasing in God’s sight. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

See, as Christians, we can have happiness in the things we do here because we have the joy of Christ in knowing that, once we’re done here, there is everlasting joy to look forward to. We can enjoy the things of this world because we are already satisfied by Christ. We will never be satisfied by the things of this world, but we can have a little fun doing the things that are not sinful. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing some of these empty things if you’re already full.

Building Godly Character

We have an extremely clear process we are to follow to grow in our faith and build Godly character. Peter was kind enough to write it down in the first chapter of his second letter in a step-by-step list of character traits you should have. This list provides us with the process to grow closer to God and the necessary characteristics we need to be encouraging in other believers.

Firstly, Peter affirms that we have been given everything we need. It’s the spiritual equivalent of the promise God made to satisfy our physical needs. He has done this by granting us His own righteousness and nature so that we can escape the grasp of sin.

2 Peter 1: 3-5 says, “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. By these He had given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.”

Notice that verse three says God has provided us everything that is required for two things: life and godliness. Not only has He given us the key to escaping sin and pursuing Him and His character, He has also granted us all we will need to get through this life on Earth.

2 Peter 1: 5-7 says, “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

That’s the process. It all begins with faith in Jesus Christ’s death, resurrection, and the salvation of sinners who accept the free gift. But, we must build on our faith, first with goodness. Let the faith that you have in Christ manifest itself in your actions so that you do genuinely good things. The first step is to be good like God is good.

The second step is to supplement that goodness with knowledge. You must know why you are to be good. To know why you are to be good, you must know why God is good. And to know why God is good, you must understand God’s character. This knowledge, then, should spur you on to greater acts of good for the kingdom of God. Those greater acts of good will add to your faith in Christ as you see what good He does in you and through you.

The third step is self-control. This is both control of your own actions and words, and the control needed to hand over control to God to handle our lives. It’s a step that goes against our very nature, which is one wherein we desire to choose for ourselves what we do. So, let your self-control supplement your knowledge of God by choosing to hand over control to Him because you know you can’t do it on your own.

The fourth step is endurance. The race we run is one of endurance, not of speed. Especially when it comes to self-control, it’s not a one and done thing. You must consistently hand over control of your life to God. To do this requires the will and the strength to continually make decisions that are against the sin nature that is prevalent all around us.

The fifth step is godliness. Endurance is useless if you put your will towards the wrong beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors. You must endure consistently against trials that seek to turn you away from God. The only way you can do that is to be filled with godliness through the character and righteousness of Christ.

The sixth step is brotherly affection, and this is less of a build-up on the first five steps and more of a manifestation of the character that should be filling you at this point in the process, though it does still supplement godliness. Brotherly affection is the love you have for your family in Christ. It builds upon godliness as a manifestation of Christ’s character. To exemplify godliness, you must love your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to love your brothers and sisters in Christ as God loves us, you must have His character.

The seventh step is the culmination of all the steps. It is the most important of all. Out of faith, hope, and love, the greatest is love. The greatest commandment is to love. We are only capable of love because Christ first loved us. So, we must have the first six qualities to love fully as we should. And in addition, we are better able to love others through our faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, and brotherly affection as we love like Christ. Love is the last step because God is love.

The most important thing, though, Peter emphasizes after listing these qualities in verse 8. “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Note that Peter doesn’t say that moving from step one to step two means you no longer have to work on step 1. In fact, once you have these qualities, you must ensure they are always increasing. To do otherwise would be to fall away from God.

In verse 9, Peter says, “The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.”

The best way to explain this verse is to compare it to the parable of the sower. Those who lack these qualities are like the seed on rocky soil. It bursts up quickly but dies out just as quickly because it doesn’t have the right nutrients to grow.

Verse 10 says, “Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble.” I feel it’s prudent to mention here that no one will ever achieve the perfection of Godly character required to not stumble in your walk with Christ. Though, if you could avoid stumbling perfectly, this would be the process by which to reach that point in your relationship with God.

In verse 11, which says, “For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly supplied to you,” Peter confirms that this is a checking process for salvation. We know that we can only be gifted salvation through the grace of God, so verse 11 isn’t saying that you’ll get into Heaven by loving others or following this guide. It’s saying that this is a way we Christians can check ourselves for our own salvation, to make sure our hearts are in the right place.

I’m sure a number of us have worried about whether our salvation is real, and this checklist can answer that question for you by presenting you with, and then answering, this question: Have you chosen to follow God and give up your life to Him by chasing after His character?

So, if you’re chasing after God because you want a relationship with the one who saved you, then you’re on the right track. This list just shows you where the track is.

Winning isn't Necessary

Getting the last word in all the time isn’t just unnecessary, it’s downright wrong and completely uncalled for as far as us Christians are concerned. We’ve probably all had those arguments where we just go round and round for ages because we refuse to concede defeat.

But I have to challenge you, and myself: what are you conceding defeat for? What will you lose if you don’t browbeat the other person into submission? Does your point suddenly become meaningless because the other person had the last word? Do you die because you lost the argument? No. You have only your own pride to lose and only yourself to disgrace. And is that really what you’re fighting for? Useless, sinful feelings?

The Bible, specifically Proverbs, has a lot to say about the subject of speaking, arguing, and pride. Sometimes, it’s better not to say anything. Sometimes, it’s fine to say your piece and move on. But, it’s always important to keep a guard on your emotions and the words that come out of your mouth.

Let’s go in chronological order for an argument, shall we?

Proverbs 21:23 says, “The one who guards his mouth and tongue keeps himself out of trouble.”

And Proverbs 13:3 says, “The one who guards his mouth protects his life; the one who opens his lips invites his own ruin.”

It’s a lot easier to avoid sin if we don’t entertain the actions that lead up to sinful behavior. That’s running away from temptation. And, a lot of times, you’re better off just not saying anything at all. Some people are out there just trying to start trouble—you know the people I’m talking about. They aren’t in the conversation to learn and listen; they just want to make you angry. So, as my dad says, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and let them think you’re a fool than to open it and prove them right.”

Next up is Proverbs 10:19, which says, “When there are many words, sin is unavoidable, but the one who controls his lips is wise.”

This one’s pretty clear. The more you speak, the more likely you are to sin. Particularly in an argument, the more you say, the longer you argue, the more incensed you get, the more likely you are to say something out of anger or hate and sin against God and the person you’re arguing with.

So, say your piece and move on. Let me let y’all in on a little secret: you’re never going to convince someone they’re wrong in the middle of an argument. Emotions run too hot for that, and a lot of the time, people don’t even bother to listen to the other side any more than it takes to refute their point. Winning an argument comes after it’s all said and done, when you have the time to sit back and think about all that was said. You don’t win the argument. The other person loses the argument against themselves.

But, if you do get in an argument and you have something you feel led to say, there’s a way to say it that is in line with how God would like us to act.

Proverbs 17:27 says, “The intelligent person restrains his words, and one who keeps a cool head is a man of understanding.”

And Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up wrath.”

Two key points come from these verses: keep calm and speak softly. Don’t attack someone’s character. Don’t raise your voice and yell. Speak in a kind, yet not condescending manner, as if you’re having a conversation with a friend, and nicely refute the points they make with your own points backed by facts.

I’ve learned more and more that it’s impossible to hate someone who’s nice to you all the time. In the same way, it’s impossible to keep up the energy to yell, scream and say mean things when the other party is calm as can be.

And finally, sometimes, you just need to let it go. Let the argument go. Let your pride go. Losing an argument is not the be all end all. Getting the last word in for the sake of your pride is losing far more than letting the other person think they’ve won.

Proverbs 11:12 says, “When pride comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom.”

And Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall.”

If, in your arrogance and pride, you go until you get the last word in, the only one to suffer and lose is you. Not only has your character, as seen by other people, been disgraced because of your actions, but you’ve sinned against God in your prideful behavior.

And in terms of sharing the Gospel, there has never been a single person who was converted by a Christian getting the last word in during a heated theological argument. Defend the faith, yes, but tell them the Gospel, tell them the facts, and then let them stew on that. It’s not always your job to grow the seed you planted.

Seriously, take it from someone who was as habitual about getting the last word in as most people are about their morning coffee. It doesn’t matter. Let them have the last word. Move on. You won’t even notice you “lost the argument.” Your character won’t disappear. In fact, you’ll likely feel better than if you had said the last word.

I’m going to adapt the phrase I quoted from my dad earlier: It’s better to let them believe they won than to say the last word and hand them the victory.

Wisdom is Sorrow

This is part two of the study I’m writing for Ecclesiastes. It is the remainder of chapter 1—verses 13-18—so if you haven’t read that one yet, please check it out under the article titled “Earth is Pointless.”

I like to group people into three standard categories of understanding when it comes to Ecclesiastes chapter 1. There are the ignorant, the knowledgeable, and the wise. This grouping comes from Ecclesiastes 1:15, “What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted,” and verse 18, “For with much wisdom is sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.”

In the first part of my study of Ecclesiastes, I talked about how we’re all searching for a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment for our lives. But, while you and I and many other Christians can put a finger on exactly what it is we’re searching for, a number of people can’t. Verse 15 refers to this. Every fully cognizant human knows we’re missing something. There’s a hole in our lives that we just can’t understand or fill no matter how hard we try.

The first grouping is the ignorant. These people are blissful because they don’t know about the hole they’re trying to fill yet. Most of the people in this group are children because their brains simply aren’t developed enough to understand, and better yet for those who already have faith in Jesus because their ignorance is blessed on top of being blissful.

The second grouping is the knowledgeable. They are those who know there is a hole, there is something missing, and they know they can find things that will temporarily cover the bottom of that hole, but have yet to find a solution to the feeling of missing something. Generally speaking, these are the nonbelievers. They’re the ones doing the pointless, useless, futile things like hoarding money, having sex, or any other number of things while looking for a solution.

And finally, the third grouping is the wise. These are the people who have come to the realization that Earth’s “satisfaction” is pointless and have found the one and only thing that can fill the hole in their lives. Generally speaking, these are the believers who know that Jesus is the only one who can satisfy and fulfill us and provide us with joy. They have seen past the knowledge of the world and have applied wisdom, which can only be found through God.

Let’s make this a metaphor, shall we. Picture a painting inside a frame hanging on a wall that is just ever-so-slightly tilted off level. Not a huge amount, but just enough that, were you to look at it, you’d raise one eyebrow and say, “that looks a little off,” to yourself.

In this metaphor, the ignorant group looks at the painting and just sees the pretty colors held within the frame. They don’t notice or care that the frame is slightly crooked. The picture looks nice, and that’s all that concerns them.

The knowledgeable group sees the frame and immediately makes that quizzical face, saying, “That’s a bit off.” Then, they reach up, grab the frame, and tilt it back towards level. However, they tilt it just a little too far, and now it’s off-kilter the other way. They step back, notice it’s crooked again, and reach up to tilt it once more. And they continue to do so in an infinite loop because they never get it quite right.

The wise group sees the frame and has the same initial reaction as the knowledgeable group. But instead of reaching up and trying to fix the frame, they go find a level, set it on top of the frame, and tilt it until it’s perfectly level. Then, they admire the painting for a few moments and move on.

Ecclesiastes describes the second group perfectly in verses 13-14, “I applied my mind to seek and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven. God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.” Attempting to level that frame by hand is a miserable task. You’ll only get more frustrated the longer you try and fail to fix it.

Solomon says it’s like pursuing the wind. Have you ever tried to chase the wind? First of all, it’s ridiculously fast, but that doesn’t even matter. Why? Because even if you could run faster than the wind, you can’t even capture it! It’ll slip right through your fingers every time you grab at it.

Now, this is all great, but why, then, is wisdom sorrow, as Ecclesiastes 1:18 says: “For with much wisdom is sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.” That’s actually pretty simple, in essence, because the sorrow doesn’t refer to yourself. Sorrow is something that can be felt for others just as much as yourself.

Remember the wise group in the metaphor that admired their paintings for a few moments and moved on? Well, that group now has the distinct displeasure of walking by every person in the knowledgeable group and watching them fiddle and fidget with their frames. That’s where the sorrow is. It’s sorrow for those who know they have a problem but can’t fix it. It’s sorrow for the grief those people experience as they tilt that frame back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

Strong’s Concordance has the word for grief in verse 18 as “makob” meaning “pain” or “suffering.” In other words, as the group with knowledge becomes more knowledgeable, tilting that frame back and forth, filling that hole, becomes more and more painful with each repetition. Each failure increases their suffering.

And this leads me to a point not detailed in chapter 1, but that I feel led to write down anyway. This is exactly why we are called to go out and make disciples of all nations, to show them to Christ. You, as someone with wisdom, are supposed to stop by each knowledgeable person you pass as they tilt their frame and introduce them to the level, to wisdom, to Christ. You should feel so much sorrow for them that you can’t help but stand by and show them how to end their suffering and find the satisfaction of fixing that frame and admiring that painting. Don’t let people suffer.

Log vs. Speck

One of the great things about studying the Bible is that we get a chance to see the same verses from different perspectives as we grow in our faith and our lives progress into different times and situations. Some verses that I’ve been seeing a little different lately are Matthew 7:3-5.

“Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a log in your eye? 5 Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Every time I’ve heard someone mention this verse, they use it to tell people to stop judging others. And that is 100% the way it was intended. The context says it’s so. But, I want to take this slightly out of context to talk about it not as judging, but as helping out a brother or sister in Christ.

Think about how weird it is to not notice a giant log in your eye, obscuring your vision, and yet, despite that log, you can somehow see a tiny speck of dirt in someone else’s eyes. How do you see that speck? Well, first of all, you have to be close to that person to see something so small in their eye. And second, you can’t be looking through the eye that has a log in it. You have to be looking from a different perspective.

Different perspectives are important because they allow us to see different things. Especially in humans, it allows us to cover blind spots in our vision. Did you know that you actually have blind spots in your eyes? They’re infinitesimally small at a close distance, but the farther away you look, the larger that spot gets. The cool thing about how God made us is that the right eye is just far enough away from the left eye to cover the left eye’s blind spot. And the perspective of the left eye is just different enough to cover the right eye’s blind spot.

Now Matthew 7:3 talks about our enormous spiritual blind spot: our own sins. Our perspective of ourselves prevents us from easily seeing the things we do wrong. Our behavior is so close to us that we find it difficult to point out those things we do that are unbiblical behavior.

Think about it. How many times has someone mentioned how easily you get angry or jealous or do any other sinful behavior? And how often do you say, “I don’t do that,” right afterward? Yet, if you took the time to really analyze your own behavior from the perspective of someone else, you’d find that you do actually do those things.

That’s because, for them, it’s easy to see. They’re not blinded by the fact it’s their own behavior. And now we get to my alternate view of this verse. While we are not supposed to judge others for their sinful behavior, what we are supposed to do is spot it and point it out to our brothers and sisters. There are a ton of verses about helping other believers be accountable to Christ, including: Matthew 18:15-18, James 5:19-20, 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15, and Hebrews 3:13.

In these ways, when we see other believers acting in persistent sin, we are called to let them know and help them correct their behavior. That’s one of the reasons we have fellowship with one another. That’s why many Christians urge you to have one, or more, accountability partner(s). Someone you trust who will be the one to point out the speck in your eye you can’t see.

Now, I want to talk briefly about verse 6: “Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.” This verse is incredibly important to the context I’m looking at here because it’s a warning to be careful with how you handle accountability.

Accountability is incredibly important, but just as important as the act is the person you choose to help you stay accountable to Christ. Accountability is a good, God-given thing for believers to stay strong in the faith. It’s like an incredibly valuable string of pearls. But it only works if you give that string of pearls to someone who is capable of appraising it properly.

If you allow a nonbeliever or someone who isn’t yet strong enough in the faith to hold your faith accountable, it will turn into judgment and tear down your walk with Christ. It’s like, as verse 6 says, handing pearls to pigs. They won’t know what to do with it.

But if you find someone who is close enough to you to see the speck in your eye, the flaws in your walk with Christ, and strong enough in the faith to know how to handle correction with love and care, then you become like iron sharpening iron. Together, you will only grow stronger in your walk with Christ. There won’t be judgment involved, just believers working together to raise their value.

So, find someone who can see your speck and speaks in love and correction, and you will find a good thing. Your walk with Christ will be better than before because of it.

Good is Intentional

You can’t make things good by accident. It’s not possible. No good thing that occurs happened by mere association with goodness. Goodness is not contagious. It is a choice, and it is a process. On the flip-side of that coin, bad is contagious. It occurs by accident. It occurs when one is not careful. It is the natural order of this fallen world. Bad things can and do occur from mere association with badness.

I’ll start you off with a common example and then we’ll move onto the Bible verses that prompted this article. Let’s talk about bread. Bread starts out as a bunch of inedible pieces that are put through a process to become edible. You take your yeast, flour, sugar, and salt, mix them together, cook them, and then you’ve turned a bunch of parts into something good. The baker has to do this intentionally. He can’t just put the ingredients next to each other, walk away, and come back to a good loaf of bread.

Now let’s talk about the enemy of bread—no, not carbs—mold. It’s the killer of all nice bread products left to sit for too long. I guarantee you: let that bread sit around long enough and mold will start growing on it making it bad to ingest. Making it useless for its intended purpose. It’s the inevitable result of something good being left to rot. And mold starts small, too, just a few spots here and there that got the worst exposure to air and moisture. But it spreads like a disease, and soon enough, it has taken over all the good, delectable bread, turning it bad.

That’s how good and bad works. You have to work to be good, while badness is innate in us all. By mere tangential association, you can be changed from good to bad if you don’t work quickly to catch it and remove it.

So, on to the Bible verses. Haggai 2: 12-13 says:

“‘If a man is carrying consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and with his fold touches bread, stew, wine, oil, or any other food, does it become holy?’

The priests answered, ‘No.’

Then Haggai asked, ‘If someone defiled by contact with a corpse touches any of these, does it become defiled?’

The priests answered, ‘It becomes defiled.’”

I don’t know all the technicalities about purifying objects to make them holy, but I can assure you of this: there was certainly a process that each thing must go through to be made holy. Just like the bread before, there is a process to take something that is not good and make it good. You can’t sit touch something bad with something good and make it good, too. Just like you can’t place a loaf of bread next to flour and expect a second loaf of bread.

But as with mold, no such process exists to make something bad. You only need to touch something bad to defile yourself and anything you touch afterwards. You don’t have to do a ritual or intend to defile something. It just happens.

That’s how doing good and bad things work. Bad things happen by the laws of a sinful world. It is innate, born into our character as sinful human beings. You don’t have to try hard to do something bad to someone. You don’t have to scheme. Sometimes, you just do things that are bad because it’s all around us.

Have you ever heard the saying, “Garbage in, garbage out?” It means that whatever you intake in your life, you will output into your own life and the lives of others. In our case, the garbage is all around us. It’s like the oxygen we breathe to live in that we don’t consciously choose to breathe or to touch evil. It’s just there.

But good is intentional. It’s a process. It is, literally, sanctification, which is the process of being made holy. You can’t do good by accident; you most certainly can’t do good when you’re only associating with the bad. You have to be cleansed, purged of the mold that is suffocating you all the time, and purposefully go through the process God has lined out in the Bible to strive for righteousness.

You have to choose good all day, every day, in order to do good. You have to choose to cut away the mold and be what you were intended to be: good. You have to step out and make the good things happen for others and point them to the process of sanctification, of belief in Christ, so that they, too, can become good. Merely associating with them is not enough. It will only infect you with the mold once more. You have to choose to be good.

Earth is Pointless

Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Bible because it has an absurd amount of experiential wisdom. It’s the troubleshooting guide for life, at its essence, because it cuts past all the clutter of living and gets straight to the point. It’s the book wherein Solomon says, “Look, I’ve tried to find satisfaction in literally every way you could possibly attempt. There is not a single thing on this planet that can satisfy you.”

Consider the things we believe will satisfy us: money, relationships, a career, aggrandizement, knowledge, pleasure, happiness, etc. Solomon tried all of that, and best of all, he wrote about how pointless it was so we wouldn’t waste our lives trying them, too.

Verse 2 says, “‘Absolute futility,’ says the Teacher. ‘Absolute futility. Everything is futile.’”

The ESV and KJV have “vanity” in place of futility here, but Strong’s Hebrew Concordance says that the word can be translated as emptiness, vanity, transitory, or unsatisfactory, and futility fits that definition just as clearly as vanity can. Futility means useless, pointless, and ineffective.

So, Solomon says that everything is pointless, and then he asks a question. Verse 3, “What does a man gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?”

Take a moment to think about that, and don’t try to be optimistic about it. Solomon wasn’t being optimistic here. What do you really get for waking up early in the morning and working hard all day? You get some money, but what’s that worth? You’re just going to spend it. No, you don’t get money. You get to wake up and do it again the next day just to survive. It’s pointless. Even if your goal is to set up your children for their own life, it’s pointless. Why?

Verse 4, “A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.” Even if you set up your children for a little better life on Earth, they’re going to do the same thing you did: wake up every morning and work all day, then go to sleep and do it again the next day. And their children will do it, and their children’s children will do it.

This is the bleak reality of this world. What you’re doing is going to repeat ceaselessly because what is here is the same forever. It’s an unbreakable cycle because there is nothing to add and nothing to take away. You can apply that to almost everything you do: help someone? Sure, you’ll feel good about it, but there are always more people to help, and that good feeling goes away, soon. It’s depressing, it really is, but that’s the point!

Solomon breaks this down with a few metaphors in verses 5-7, “The sun rises and the sun sets; panting, it returns to its place where it rises. Gusting to the south, turning to the north, turning, turning, goes the wind, and the wind returns in its cycles. All the streams flow to the sea, yet the sea is never full. The streams are flowing to the place, and they flow there again.”

Verse 5 refers back to verse 3. You work hard, like the sun, to do your daily routine, then you return home to rise and do it again.

Verse 6 is another reference to the repetition and pointlessness of everything. If you know anything about weather patterns, you’ll know that wind has its cycles and seasons. There are occasional variations, just like our lives occasionally have some energy injected into them via unscripted, irregular events, but in the end, they always go straight back to where they came from. That’s the thing about spheres: no matter which way you go around it, you’ll always end up right back where you started.

The point that Solomon makes with verse 7 is simple, in essence, and it’s that nothing that you do in this life will fill you up. If you’re the ocean in this metaphor, then the things you pour out into—the money, the friends, the career—are pouring back into you. But, as with the oceans and rivers of Earth, you don’t become more full as those things you’ve emptied yourself into pour back into you because you empty into them at the same rate they give their return. It’s a net gain of zero.

It’s a wearisome prospect, as Solomon says in verse 8. “The eye is not satisfied by seeing or the ear filled with hearing.” Think about that for a second. Your eyes and ears were literally designed to see and hear, and yet they’re not satisfied by doing their job. Neither are you. But as 8a describes, “All things are wearisome; man is unable to speak.” This problem we have can’t even be put into words. I think the closest we get is when we get fed up with it all and say “I’m tired.”

Verses 9-11 are Solomon affirming what I mentioned at the beginning of this article. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Can one say about anything, ‘Look, this is new,’ It has already existed in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of those who came before; and of those who will come after there will also be no remembrance by those who follow them.”

Take a moment to think about a circle: it’s one continuous line bent around to meet itself. It has no definable starting or ending point. In fact, it’s pointless. Now think of a sphere: what is a sphere except an innumerable amount of circles put together to create a 3-D object? That’s us and Earth. We’re in a cycle on this sphere where everything on it and in it has been tried before, but just as we finish going around in our lives, another generation will follow and do the same thing.

Every generation of the human race has tried and tries the same things available to us on Earth to achieve satisfaction, not knowing that it’s all been done before, and it has never worked and never will. The sins and behaviors that plague us today are the same ones that plagued the people in Biblical times because we’re all walking in circles looking for pointless things because we’re missing the point.

I said earlier that Ecclesiastes is the troubleshooting guide for us because it has all the attempted fixes in it. But the final step of the guide is a finger pointing to the rest of the Bible, to Christ, because He is the only one who can satisfy us. So skip to the back page of the guide, don’t try all the things of this Earth. You won’t find satisfaction here. Skip straight to Christ.

Our Free Will

Have you heard the song “Already There” by Casting Crowns? If not, there’s a link to it at the bottom of this article, so go give it a listen.

This song tackles the omniscience of God and how He sees His plans for us compared to how we do, but I think many of us Christians understand this well enough to use it as a skipping point to a much more complicated subject that’s hinted at in this song, too, and that’s God’s presence existing outside of time and how we are to rationalize that with the concept of our ability to decide what we do.

We know God existed before time, in the beginning of time, in the past, the present, the future, and He also exists currently outside of time. It’s hard to wrap our heads around a God who can play with time like we do Play-doh, stretching it out and squishing it together. I know I struggle with it a lot, but I had to at least come up with some way to think about it because I had to tackle the topic of free will to answer a query presented to me by someone struggling with the concept.

Take the lyrics for the chorus of “Already There”: “To You my future is a memory / Cause You're already there.” It’s a little weird to think about God knowing what we’ll do before we do it. I think to some it sounds like He knows what we’re going to do because he’s destined us to do it, and there are a few Bible verses taken out of context that can make it sound like we’re destined to believe or not believe in God, to be saved or not be saved.

Of the verses I’ve seen taken out of context in this manner, here are just a few: Jeremiah 1:5, Ephesians 1:5, and Colossians 3:12. But those verses don’t necessarily mean that God made all humans, picked, for example, 50% of them and said, “these people will be the ones I choose to be saved.” To believe in such an idea changes the very character and nature of God. But what those verses do mean is that God knows something we don’t.

The simplest way I used to rationalize God’s omniscience with my little-iscience, my limited, fallible brain power, was that whether God knows you’re going to say yes to His gift of salvation, He still chooses to offer it to you.

And that’s an important conclusion, but it only addresses a small part of the question: how does free will work? So, let’s apply this to a much larger scale—the scale of one lifetime. You see, the thing that was bothering the girl who got me to consider this in a deeper way was concerned with how to live her life and fulfill her desires when she knew that God wants us to fulfill His desires over our own.

And we could get into the whole discussion about how our desires work in relation to God’s desires for us, but that’s a topic for another day and another article. So, the way to really think about this is to take a look at how God’s omniscience works and then try to compare it to something a little easier to think about.

See, if we’re doing this relationship with God right, then part of what we have is the deepest friendship we could ever have with someone. It’s one where our friend knows us so well He can tell what we’re thinking. That friends knows us so well that He could see us presented with any situation and know exactly what we’d do every single time.

For example, you’re presented with a choice of three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Your friend is with you as you’re given the chance to choose which one you want, and right before you reach out and take your preferred flavor, chocolate, your friend leans over and says “I bet you’re going to pick chocolate.” So, you reach out and grab the chocolate ice cream and eat to your heart’s content.

Does the fact that your friend told you that you would pick chocolate change that you would have picked chocolate anyway? Did it suddenly eliminate the other two options? Did it change how much you enjoyed the ice cream? Of course not. You picked chocolate because you like chocolate more than vanilla and strawberry, and you enjoyed it because you like it. It’s actually pretty simple, all things considered.

Someone else knowing that you’re going to choose a certain way doesn’t automatically make the other options disappear, and it doesn’t mean that you’re going to like the option you chose any less than if they didn’t know.

It’s the same thing with God. Just because He knows you’re going to choose career Y over career Z doesn’t mean you didn’t get to choose career Y. Just because He knows you’re going to choose to serve in a certain way doesn’t mean the option wasn’t there for you to serve in another way. Don’t let your fallible mind’s inhibitions keep you from doing what God wants you to do. You might end up pulling a Jonah and Nineveh situation, and that’s just not as pleasant as doing what you would find the most joy in anyway.

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Faith Needs Works

Now, before you assume anything, make sure to stick around, because I promise that I’m not writing things that are unbiblical when I say this, even though it sounds controversial.

We all know that we are saved by grace through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who was fully God and fully man, lived a perfect life on Earth, and sacrificed himself on the cross so that we could be free of sin. The Bible is pretty clear on that. And let me be clear: works cannot save you. But what I’m getting at is how our faith should manifest itself in the everyday lives we have.

We often talk about Christians showing good fruit, and how Christians who aren’t showing the good fruit of the Spirit need to check their lives and relationship with Christ because something’s gone wrong in their faith, and that’s very much the truth, but having good works is just as important as being patient, kind, gentle, having self control, etc. See, after we’ve accepted the gift of salvation given to us, we don’t get to just relax in our little bubble of Christians where we practice patience and goodness and peace. We have an obligation to God to do as He calls us to do.

James challenges his readers to change the way they thought about their faith. James 2: 14-17 says, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.”

Based on verses 15-16, I presume that the people James wrote to had the same problem a lot of us have today: they liked to pray about everything, but never do anything about it. Think about it. How many of us pray about the homeless person we see walking down the street every day, but never stop to give him food? How many of us hear from a neighbor who’s struggling to pay their bills but don’t think about loaning or giving him some of our spare cash until he can find a new job?

I think some of this faulty faith we have stems from our belief that God will step in and take care of things deus ex machina style. We tend to run straight toward asking God to provide via a miraculous divine intervention, but we often forget that we are God’s representatives on Earth. We are His deus ex machina. We are called to be an unexpected power to save others from a potentially hopeless situation. Think about this: if God just did everything by His divine intervention, what reason would we have to be on Earth?

That’s why we are called to have faith with works. It’s really easy to say you believe in God and you believe that he will take care of you, but I think we can all agree it’s a lot harder to act that out. It’s difficult when you see someone unable to afford the groceries they need, and you feel God telling you to step in and pay for them, but you know that you don’t have any money to spare for the month. That’s why we have phrases like “put your money where your mouth is,” and “actions speak louder than words.”

The good news is twofold. The first part is that God comes through when we exercise our faith. Remember Abraham? I hope so because James certainly did in James 2: 20-23, “Foolish man! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless? Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was perfected. So the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.”

In Genesis 22, after Abraham proves he is willing to sacrifice his only son for God, God promises that the descendants of Abraham will be numerous and a blessing to the world, and man oh man did he come through with that promise. And, in fact, one of Abraham’s descendants became the greatest blessing the world has ever seen: Jesus.

The second part of the good news about faith is that it works like a muscle: the more we exercise it, the stronger it gets. Exercising your faith is like the trust we have in all things, but I’ll adapt the age-old chair example. You can’t know a chair will hold you up until you sit on it, but once you do, you’re quicker to believe it will hold you each subsequent time you sit down.

When we give away our last bit of money to help someone in need and see that God takes care of our needs afterwards, we become quicker to do something similar the next time, and quicker again the next because we have experienced God following through on His promises.

That’s what works is, and that’s why it’s important. Since we’re called to be God’s representatives on Earth, it’s so very important that we exercise our faith via works because that’s how the faithless see God. It helps set us apart so that we can show who God is, how He works, and that He truly does take care of those who believe in Him. When we don’t exercise our faith through works, all we’re doing is spouting hot air.

Finally, just to get you thinking a little bit, let’s go back to the chair. See, a lot of us are really quick to say we believe the chair will hold us. And we’re free to do that as much as we want. But the fact of the matter is, you don’t really believe the chair will hold you up if you refuse to sit on it. In the same way, we must question our faith: If you say that you have faith in God until you’re blue in the face but refuse to step out and exercise your faith, do you really have faith in God? And since we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, the question then becomes: are you truly saved?

Finally, if you want a song reference for what I’m getting at, check out these two down below! These guys are great artists and they tell a wonderful message.

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