This week's "Reflection" by Gary Keith, Lead Pastor
Empty-Handed Adventure
Ecclesiastes 1:12-18
This week Solomon talked about his pursuit of wisdom. It was pretty interesting to see Solomon’s thoughts about wisdom especially in light of the time he chose to ask God for wisdom and God granted it to him. I think the most startling thing for me to consider this week was verse 18 when he says that the greater our wisdom the greater our grief and sorrow. That just didn’t add up to me. I would naturally think that the greater my wisdom the better handle I would have on all things concerning life, and that would make me happy or at least satisfied.
But Solomon has said just the opposite. He says the more we know the more sadness it brings to our lives. What do you think about that? What has been your experience? Is it true that the more we know the more sorrow we experience? Why is that?
Tell me how that has worked out for you – I’d love to get some more wisdom on this idea!
I would say the more wisdom we have sorrow we are aware of and exposed to. As a young man I was blissful self-indulgent and unaware of the true cost of my comments and actions as-well-as the comments and actions of others. Now each word of anger, envy and malice; and each negligent act, sins of omission and commission I know their tragic end. My speech is more guarded, I act less impulsively, but I'm much more quiet now, full of regrets and sorrow for past actions and comments which I can never take back.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience, Tim. I'm thankful that we have a redeemer for all the regrets and sorrow from the past. I'm thankful that Jesus can buy back the past with all of it's regrets for our bad behavior. It's reminds me of my Palm Sunday message about forgiveness and the powerful force it is for healing the past.
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