“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…” (ESV – Read the chapter)
This is a rather jarring beginning to a letter. Count it all joy when you experience trials. Really?!? ALL joy? How? Why? Read the rest…
Tag: Joy
Morning Musings: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
If we let them, the troubles of this world will completely overwhelm us and leave us unable to pursue the path of Jesus with anything resembling the commitment we need in order to gain the benefits from it. Problems in our marriages, problems with our kids, troubles at work, hardships at school, financial challenges, family issues, interpersonal doubts, and so on can fill our field of view until we don’t see anything else. They become the lens through which we see everything else. Depression (not clinical), discouragement, and malaise become our constant companions. Read the rest…
Digging in Deeper: Ecclesiastes 7:10
“Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Have you ever longed for the “good old days”? Why? What about them did you desire? Simpler times? Different social interactions? Fewer burdens? No social media?
I have come to the conclusion that one of the major false gods of our culture is called Nostalgia. The thing about Nostalgia, though, is that he is subtle. No one realizes they are worshiping him at first, and even if you were to point it out to them, they’d just respond, “No, I’m not. I’m just reminiscing about the way things were.”
And yet, this is what the worship of Nostalgia looks like. We come to his altar and offer sacrifices of time and memory. We offer cynicism about the current state of the world. We offer judgments of people who are younger than we are. In return, he gives us warm feelings about the past that are a comforting salve for the pressures of the present. Read the rest…
Morning Musings: Ecclesiastes 6:3
“If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
While Solomon seems to promote a kind of “eat and drink for tomorrow we die,” hedonistic fatalism here, I think there’s something more afoot. As he has surveyed the world around him, he has noticed that there are many who pursue much, but whether they obtain it or not, when the pursuit becomes their god they can no longer enjoy the fruits of their labors whether larger or small.
Better in this life is to seek to find all the enjoyment we can in the things we have, working hard to see them increase, but not to the point that work becomes the end instead of the means. The best life will always be found in working hard, delighting fully in what we have (and among the chief ways to do that is to use it for the benefit of others), all with faithfulness to the Lord as our guide.
The Nexus 