meaningless, meaningless

firstly, i apologise that it's been so long. schoolwork and the birthdays of important people have trumped the typing of vaguely interesting observations this past week. but as you can see i've made a return and am enjoying getting my blog on. so here goes..

two unrelated references to Ecclesiastes this morning prompted me to start reading it. the Teacher has devoted himself to studying the world and has come to the conclusion that everything is meaningless "I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are vanity, a chasing after the wind". In a stage of life where my occupation largely consists of memorising useless slabs of information in order to write them all down frantically in 3 hour instalments of October, I heartily agree with the Teacher here. 

For Solomon (who we assume to be the 'Teacher' in Ecclesiastes), all his great wisdom seems to have fallen into ruin. he can see no purpose or meaning in the passing of time and the activities of humanity. and i am tempted to despair that someone so wise can be so greived by the pointlessness of the world. what hope have I of ever growing in wisdom when it appears to end in sorrow? 

i think the biggest problem we have is that when we ask God for wisdom, we expect him to show us the reason behind the madness of the world. we think that being wise means understanding the intricate nature of life and seeing meaning in the cheapness and nastiness of it. but as Ecclesiastes shows us, even a man that God blessed with great wisdom failed to see purpose in the inexplicable things of life. does this mean that the teacher failed to remain wise? does it mean that we fail to attain wisdom?

we need to change our ideas about what wisdom is. God doesn't promise to make everything clear to us. our brains are midget, we are finite, so how can we expect to understand the workings of life? Romans 11:33-34 "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?" We are totally unable to gain this type of understanding and this is a humbling fact. our bewilderment teaches us to trust God, live by faith and not become proud in our feeble understanding of the world. 

Solomon tells us in the final verses of Ecclesiastes, what wisdom is.                                                  13 Now all has been heard; 
  here is the conclusion of the matter: 
  Fear God and keep his commandments, 
  for this is the whole duty of man. 

 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, 
  including every hidden thing, 
  whether it is good or evil.

Wisdom is knowing that the world is full of meaningless things like highschool, or lonliness or the death of a baby, but trusting and obeying God anyway because we know he is ultimately in control. this makes us more humble, more joyful and more ready to serve Jesus. in the words of J.I. Packer "let us see to it then, that our own quest for wisdom takes the form of a quest for these things, and that we do not frustrate the wise purpose of God by neglecting faith and faithfulness in order to pursue a kind of knowledge which in this world it is not given to us to have."

thats all for today, folks. will be blogging more this week as all assessments for the term are complete. huzzah! until then, grace to you all :)