Thursday, May 27, 2010

Life is Unfathomable. Therefore Choose Life.

Pouring Chrysenthenum Tea
Water to Wine; Chrysenthenum Tea to Champagne?

Some days, you're just toodle-ing along, humming to yourself, comfy and satisfied with life etc, then a door appears as you trot by. You slow down, to hear the also-recently-apparated door-keeper say,"Come in, come through here". You peer gingerly through the doorway and a path of hitherto unthought-of possibilities yawns before you; a road of the undreamed and uncertain. You will leave friends and companions behind if you choose to go this way. The only thing you know is that it ostensibly concludes at your original destination.

Then, you are thankful for the Word in season, as it is in all seasons.
Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.
Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
He who observes the wind will not sow,
and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. (Ecclesiastes 11:1-6)
Thankful that you can live by faith, knowing that you are a creature completely dependent on your Creator; knowing that your Creator controls all things even the hairs on your head; knowing that such a powerful person cares for you, working everything for your good, and so knowing, can take risks and not be paralysed by the unknown. (And frankly, all outcomes are ultimately unknown.)

Thankful that you call as Father the one who gave you good things, that you may not worship the good things themselves for you know that only your Father sees and dictates the future, not your genes, your IQ and EQ, your family and friends, your exam grades, nor your CV (Isaiah 45:1-48:22; Charlie Skrine - The Lord of Time).
Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.

So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut — when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low — they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets — before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 11:7-12:8)
Thankful that you can drink life to the lees and wring maximum enjoyment from God's fantastic creation, knowing that the days will come when you will no longer find any pleasure in them.

Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.

The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:9-14)
Thankful that there is some order in the world so that there is a wise and a foolish way to live, but knowing the reality that bad things will happen even to the wise man, that life will sometimes be unfathomable, that all achievement will end with death, that our existence and the things we do are a vanity.

Thankful that God has frustrated our attempts to understand everything, so that we do not think that we ourselves are god, that we will fear him. Thankful that the ultimate wisdom is that, in knowing this, we do not waste our lives in futile and arrogant thought and research, attempting to solve the unsolvable. Rather, we can spend our energies doing what he created us to do - fear him and keep his commandments, for one day he will ask us to give an accounting for what we did while still alive.

In other words, thankful for the opportunity to choose life (Deuteronomy 30; Andrew Ong - The choice is yours - Make the right choice and choose the good life).

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