Here’s the Truth. Can you Handle it? Day 2

 Is there anything of which one can say, “Look, this is something new”? It was here, already, long ago; it was here before our time.

Ecc. 1:10

This week, in 5 days and 1250 words, I will try to draw from this penetrating book and the complex mind behind it some practical lessons that we can apply to our life.

Lesson 1: There is nothing new under the sun.

“Under the sun” and “meaningless” (or “vanity”) are the code-breakers for Solomon’s worldview. The first refers to how things operate in the 24-7-365 and A to B world.Under the sun is the place where we make our own luck and we eat our own food by the sweat of our brow. (Gen. 3:19). It is the fallen world that we all, believer and lost alike, share and whose realities we all live under.

“Meaningless/vanity” does not speak of the superficiality of life, but its impermanence. Nothing—neither the good nor the bad—lasts forever. If we drive our tent pegs into a situation or person and expect to camp there for the duration, we will be disappointed, if not devastated.

Ecclesiastes 3, covers most of the bases on life’s options. It is book-ended with the biggest and most beyond-our-control events we can name: birth and death, war and peace. But everything else—tearing down and building, weeping and laughing, being silent and speaking up and all the rest—is also on the menu for most of us. These events may come over time or surprise us when we least expect it. But there is nothing that comes into our life that is not being/ has not been/will not in the future beexperienced by men and women boys and girls everywhere.

How should we handle it? “I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live” (Ecc. 3:12). Enjoy your today, wring every drop of laughter and joy out of it. Take a moment to enjoy the sunset, walk outside to view the stars.Tend your garden—or plant one. Enjoy a leisurely meal with loved ones.

Gray hairs and wrinkles will come. That ideal work situation may turn into something you never anticipated. Your perfect children will grow up and have lives—and problems—of their own.

When the bad times come, remember you are not unique and you certainly are no victim. And it is at these times one must ask not, “Why me?” but “why not me?”.

Nancy Shirah