Ecclesiastes Thoughts.

I’ve been thinking a lot about life since we are in the middle of a series on Ecclesiastes at church.

The thing that keeps coming back to me is how wearisome life can be. It says that life can be wearisome in the book of Ecclesiastes and I see it all around me. It’s a thought that we try to avoid or “fix”, but the truth is that life can plain wear people out.

Here’s where I ran into a catch 22… As a church we need to reach people who are broken down and burned out. It’s what Jesus commanded and what love demands. The problem is, however, that when everyone is tired who has the energy to help those in need?

My thoughts have brought me to these two convictions:

1. Sometimes in order to get out of a funk we need to start by giving. It’s part of the human condition that we always look first to receive, but God has designed things in a counter-intuitive way. God wants us to live by faith and so he has built things to work best when we extend ourselves first (isn’t that what faith is?)

The point is, our church needs to lovingly encourage people to do what they don’t think they can do – serve others when they feel empty. Paul said, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” Maybe all of us who feel week are actually poised for great things and we don’t even realize it?

2. If life can be wearisome, we need to look at energy as a gift and a resource we can use to worship God. If most people are frantic then it seems to make sense that if you are not frantic you are in an incredible place to give and serve.

The point is, our church needs to encourage those who have time, energy, talents, resources and gifts to use them rather than merely enjoy them. Paul said, “I am poured out like a drink offering…” Maybe our energy was meant to be presented to God as a sacrifice of praise rather than just used as fuel for amusement.

In the end, we somehow have to believe that as a church we can pull together and meet some of the needs that exist all around us… and that in doing so, we will find the strength that many of us are desperately seeking.