The choice is yours: stay better or start enjoying God’s good gifts. On Sunday, Walt showed us from Ecclesiastes 9 the temptation of becoming bitter and cynical towards life’s unpredictable nature. What is portrayed in Proverbs as a neatly mapped city with perfect symmetry is portrayed in Ecclesiastes as a city that has been twisted by an earthquake. Because of the devastating effects of the curse, the default design of how life should work is filled with painful and surprising detours at every turn. The net result of encountering so many unexpected turns can leave us jaded, bitter, or anxious.
However, the Preacher insists on a different direction! Rather than succumbing to a bitter cynicism, Solomon calls us to something very surprising - JOY! In fact, Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 contain indicatives - commands. These are not merely observations and musings. Instead, these few verses carry what has been called “the moral urgency of Joy.” Enjoyment is the way we obey these commands. Let’s review the verses:
7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. 8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. 9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. - Ecclesiastes 9:7-10
In summary, we are commanded to enjoy our wine, our wife, and our work. These are a sampling of the wonderful things God has given us to enjoy. Rather than obsessing over gain, we are to simply enjoy the gifts that our Creator delights to give. We can slow down and drink in God’s good gifts to wash down life’s brokenness. We should be a people who refuse to walk down the path of bitterness and, instead, cultivate a recognition of God’s gifts. When we sit down to the family meal, we can marvel at the hand-shucked corn and the mastery with which the mashed potatoes were smashed to tasty perfection.
But how do we cultivate this joy in God’s good gifts?
Author and theologian Tom Schreiner has written helpfully about how we can grow in our joy:
The key to joy is humility. God calls us to be content as creatures. Pride makes us want to be gods, but humility accepts the truth that we can’t master time. We are flesh and blood creatures; we are made of dust. So we accept our work every day from God. To be a creature means we cannot unravel all the mysteries of the universe, but we can live and work and rest in God.
We give thanks to God for what he has called us to do. We thank him for the jobs we have. We don’t master life, and we don’t know what the days ahead will bring. But we put our trust in God, and eat and drink every day with joy. We give thanks for our daily bread. We find joy in the ordinary things of life: in taking walks, in exercising, in regularly attending church, and in meeting with friends. If our days are good, if we are spared suffering, that is a gift of God. Ordinary days have their own glory. Every piece of toast with jam on it is a gift of God. Every sweet apple and tasty clementine. When we receive life as God’s gift, we see the glory in the ordinary.
As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and his ordinary wife and their ordinary children.”
There is a glory and joy in the ordinary things.
Ecclesiastes says, “Don’t try to unravel and figure out the reason everything happens in the world.” It is beyond your ability; “the secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29). When days are good, enjoy them. Enjoy the days God has given you with your wife, your family, and your friends.
Receive them as a gift of God and see God’s goodness in such days.
May we be a people who fear God and grow in our enjoyment of his daily gifts!