Ecclesiastes 6-8 - Coming to Grips with Reality

Tom Shrader examines five common delusions from Ecclesiastes 6-8 that prevent people from finding true meaning: believing you can never have too much of a good thing, preferring celebration over confrontation, thinking you can control your destiny, expecting people to pay for what they say, and assuming smart operators can get away with murder. He explains that our insatiable appetites exist because we're trying to fill a God-sized need with temporary things, and only a relationship with God through Christ can satisfy our deepest longings.

“You have certain needs that are met with a person, place, or thing temporarily, but God's wired you with this giant need for something way bigger than you, and that's a personal relationship with Him through Christ.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Reflections From the Top of the Heap (2007)

Recorded: June 14, 2007

Duration: 40 min

Themes: meaning, purpose, satisfaction, contentment, wisdom, delusion, materialism, fulfillment, seeking purpose, feeling empty, chasing success, wealthy individuals, middle aged, business leaders, struggling with materialism, questioning life choices

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 6-8, Ecclesiastes 6:7, Ecclesiastes 7:3, Ecclesiastes 7:13, Ecclesiastes 7:21, Ecclesiastes 8:11, James 4, Philippians 1:6, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Romans 8:28-39, Hebrews 11:1-3, Genesis 1:1

Theological Themes: ecclesiastes, solomon, vanity, meaninglessness, providence, sovereignty, stewardship, idolatry

Handout Link

Full Transcript

We are in session 6 of our 8-session series titled "Reflections from the Top of the Heap." This is, in essence, the memoirs of a guy by the name of Solomon. Solomon is unique in history in that God said, "Here's this guy and he is going to experience in life everything that you think would make you happy." Whatever it is in your life, whether it's sex or drugs or accumulation of wealth, when you said that with Solomon, if you said, "Well, that didn't make me happy," Solomon would say, "I could have told you that." Solomon's been there, done that.

Ecclesiastes means "one who assembled the facts." So Solomon sits at the end of his life and he looks back and he's writing really a book, obviously now almost 3,000 years old, a book that is as fresh and as relevant today as if he had just written it last week.

Solomon's Wandering Thoughts

When we get to Ecclesiastes chapters 6, 7, and 8, it's almost like Solomon's mind begins to wander here. The thoughts become somewhat random looking. We know they aren't. We know he's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But it's like there's a thought here and then one over here and they kind of come together.

A few years ago, I bought a book called "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci." I thought, "Well, this will be good for me." I didn't get very far in it. I got about a third of the way through it. But one of the exercises they had you do was to get paper, get a stack of paper, put your pen on the paper, start writing, never lift your pen off the paper. Go all the way through that page. When you're done, do the same thing for 10 minutes. Just keep writing. You can't stop.

Then when you go back, read it out loud, which I felt kind of stupid. But I talk out loud to myself, so it was okay. I'm reading this and it's really interesting. The first 60 seconds are fairly coherent. And then it's just like you're moving. So I'm talking about vacation and the beach. Then I'm talking about in eighth grade I dated Patty Wafer. I'm all over this thing. When I read Ecclesiastes 6, 7, and 8, it sounds like that. That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's like Solomon's saying, "I've got to get this out. I'm moving over here. I'm moving over here. I'm coming around."

The Essence of Ecclesiastes

In many ways, as we read through this book, there's a sense in which we could have done this whole book in about 60 seconds by taking the very first beginning of chapter 1 and the last part of the last chapter. Because in essence, here's what Solomon says: "Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless." And then he says, "When it's all said and done, trust God, obey His commandments." Now that's really the book.

Part of what I try to communicate to the kids is to say, "I know you were raised in a generation of sound bites and bumper stickers. So here's what the Bible tells us: Love God, hate sin."

What Solomon is doing now is going through, and there's part of me... I was taking Susan through this the other night, and she said, "These people have got to be sick of this." And I said, "Well, thank you, sweetheart." And she said, "Tom, it's the same thing every week." And I said, "I can't change what's in the book. I don't have that luxury."

The Importance of Repetition

When Solomon or any author in the book goes repeat, repeat, repeat... I'm doing right now in church the upper room discourse. So it's John 14, 15, 16, 17. In John 14, 15, 16, there's five or six times Jesus says, "Ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. Ask whatever you want." Well, the first time I teach this, I've said everything I got to say about this. And then it's there again, and then it's there again, and then it's there again.

My point to them, I think, on that passage is when God repeats something like that, the first thing we would conclude would be what? It's important. The second thing, at least for me, is to say, "I mustn't get it the first time." This has nothing to do with this lesson, but that is an awesome thought. When He says, "Ask whatever you want and it will be done for you." Now, I understand there's qualifiers of in His will and all that, but He's saying, "Ask." I'm pretty sure most of us never take Him up on that. We ask for things, and it's like we're almost protecting His reputation. "If I ask Him for that, He's never going to do it, and then He's going to look bad."

Peter's Deliverance

There's a wonderful section—boy, are we a long way from this lesson—but there's a wonderful section in the book of Acts where Peter's in prison. Do you remember that? Peter's in prison, and they're getting ready to kill him the next day. It says the disciples are praying. The disciples are gathered together and they're praying. It says they're praying intently.

My assumption would be they're praying intently, and one of the things they're praying intently for is what? Peter's deliverance. So it would be something like this: "God, deliver him. Our brother Peter's in jail. He's in trouble. Deliver him." As they're praying, God's doing this incredible thing. Peter's delivered. Peter somehow understands this is where they'd be, knocks on the door. A servant girl comes, opens the door, sees it's Peter. She panics, closes the door, doesn't even let him in, turns around and says to the guys, "Peter's at the door," and they said what? "It must be a ghost."

Now, put this together. They're praying, "Father in heaven, you can do anything. You created the world. You've spoken into existence. You can do whatever there is. Release our brother Peter." "It's a ghost. There's no way God's going to answer this prayer."

Five Delusions

So when God repeats things, it's because they're important, and it's because maybe we don't really get it. What we're going to look at today, and you've got them in your outlines, are five what we've called delusions that Solomon points out to us. To be honest with you, there are five things

Here's the first delusion: that you can never have too much of a good thing. The reality is you'll never satisfy your senses. Ecclesiastes 6:7 says, "All a man's efforts are for his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied."

We looked and talked about wealth, and Solomon said whoever loves money never has money enough. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. Solomon is saying it may seem to you like your problem is economic, and the solution is more income, but the reality is if you're loving money, you're never going to have enough. The reality is that we tend to spend whatever we make.

The Trap of Moving Financial Goalposts

There was a point in time I remember I was interviewing a kid—and when I say kid, I mean this kid's right out of college, right out of this Christian college. He was naive, a little Christian Twinkie. A little Christian kid: Christian grade school, Christian high school, Christian college. This kid was just Christian, naive.

So I said to him—there were two of us interviewing him—and the other guy said to him, "How much money would you think you'd need to make to make a lot of money and to be happy?" Here's what he said: "Fifty grand a year." I said, "That's a stupid question." He has no idea. Last year the kid made something like a million, two, three, four. So we got way past the fifty grand, but I didn't smell satisfaction. I'm not saying he's not satisfied, I'm just saying if I'm moving down that road, and if that's what's driving me, whatever it is, I'll just move it. If I'm making fifty grand and strapped, I say if I make seventy-five I'll be okay, and the reality is I'm not.

The Insatiable Nature of Our Appetites

It's the same thing with food. Somebody said, "It's really interesting to see you drinking coffee. I didn't know you drank coffee." And I really don't. I quit, but I can't. I love to go into AJ's, like in the morning, like at six o'clock. There's nobody in there, and I give my order to the gal, and I'm walking through there, and there's a humidor, there's a big wine selection, there's all these cheeses. I don't drink wine, but obviously wine is a big business, and you can smell they're making breakfast. I don't know why, but I love to go into AJ's, and I get one of these mocha deals, so it's not even really a drink, and then I'll put like a little bit of coffee in it, and I get it, and when I'm done I'll throw it out, and it'll be about half gone.

The reason I quit drinking coffee: I would drink like two and three and four pots a day. I would just keep drinking it. The only thing I've ever done in moderation is work. I can't—I don't have a button. I don't have that button that says stop. And what Solomon is saying is nobody does really, with those things that are a passion.

Susan—the kids were coming over the other day, and the fact I have to tell you this is embarrassing, but I'm really trying to eat pretty correctly, eat pretty well. So the kids are coming over the other day, so Susan gets a bunch of junk, and she buys this ice cream, half a gallon of Dreyer's Almond Joy ice cream. Well I love Snickers, but I love Almond Joy. I said, "Susan, why would you get this?" "Oh, the girls, they're here, you know." I said, "They're not going to eat this stuff. One's pregnant and she's paranoid about everybody looking at her. And the other one is trying to lose weight. They're not going to eat this stuff."

Well, they come in, they don't take a bite of this ice cream. I said, "Susan, send it home with them." I go back and I come out. So the next day she's doing something and I go into the freezer and there's this ice cream. I said, "This is ridiculous. This has no business." I put it in the microwave for twelve seconds, and then I ate a half gallon of it, which is a lot. I mean, that's a lot of ice cream. I took a breather to get some cashews, but then I went back.

The Root Cause of Our Dissatisfaction

What Solomon is saying is you're never going to be satisfied. Now, I'm going to explain to you why right now. This is a huge deal. Here's why you're never going to be satisfied: You're not wired to be satisfied by a person, a place, or a thing.

You have certain needs. Like right now, I'm kind of hungry. A little bit, not too much, but kind of hungry. I'm going to have breakfast with Dr. Grudem today, so that's a big deal for me. So I've been practicing questions for Him, and He's going to go, "Just eat." I love having breakfast with Him, and we do it a couple times a year. But I've been thinking yesterday and this morning about what I want to order for breakfast. Wouldn't you think meditating on God's word might be better than "Should I have that sausage, or is this a bacon day?"

I'm hungry. When I eat, I'll be satisfied for a while. We need clothing. You can get cool shorts like this and be cool for a while. You have certain needs that are met with a person, place, or thing temporarily. But God's wired you with this giant need for something way bigger than you, and that's a personal relationship with Him through Christ. Nothing else can meet that need.

The reason we have insatiable appetites is this: We're trying to meet that need that one author calls "this crucial longing." We're trying to meet that need with a person, a place, or a thing. So I get this longing to glorify God, to have intimacy with God, and I try to fill it with a trip to Maui. I try to fill it with a new house, or a new car, or an old car, or clothes, or a person. And so I go from thing to thing to thing, job to job to job, person to person.

The Delusion of Never Having Too Much

Person to person, wine to cigars to food. All those things are fine, but they are not going to do what only God can do in your life. You can do this with a person too. When I married Susan, this is really interesting to me. I'm standing up there, she's coming down the aisle, and I'm thinking, "This is unbelievable, because there's a shot at this point she's going to go through with this."

So she gets up there, and the guy said, "Do you take Susan to be your wife?" and so on. I said, "I do." Then he said, "Susan, do you take Tom to be your husband, for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, till death do you part?" There's like this long pause, and I know exactly what she's thinking. She's thinking, "This is really stupid." But she said, "I do."

We're walking out, and I'm thinking, "This is incredible." There aren't many guys like this, but I married Susan hoping she would change me. I was looking for Susan to make me happy. I was looking for Susan to make me whole. I was looking for Susan—this is real—to be God. I was asking Susan to do what only God can do. Susan's way beyond anything I ever imagined, but no human can fill that spot. So the delusion is that you can never have too much of a good thing. The reality is your senses are never going to be satisfied.

The Delusion of Celebration Over Confrontation

Here's the second delusion: that celebration is better than confrontation. The reality is, jokes and humor are fine, but there are times when I need to be very serious. Ecclesiastes 7:3 says, "Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of the fool is in the house of pleasure. It is better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the songs of a fool."

There is a desire just to laugh our way through life. When I started teaching, one of the pressures that I felt was to interject humor into the teaching. I don't know if you'll get this, and if you don't, it's my fault, not yours. But somehow it feels like you're tracking better if you're engaged and laughing along the way.

Humor's got a role, I think, in presentation. I don't think I'm particularly funny. I think I'm clever, but not funny ha-ha, if you get the distinction. I don't think I tell a good joke, but I have incredibly witty insights. See, maybe that was a good joke, so I don't know.

A Lesson in Appropriateness

I'm one day doing this church retreat down in Tucson, and I finished the Saturday morning session. In the afternoon it's free, and then there's a session at night. So we're playing basketball and messing around. I had three different guys come up to me and say, "This is really uncomfortable for me to say to you."

Let me stop for a second. I don't know if you have people say that to you. I get that a lot. At that point, one of two things is going to happen. Either this guy is about to confess a dark secret, some real serious dark sin, or he's about to confront me about something in my life. I've had that said to me a million times, and there are only those two possibilities.

All three of them said, "It's really uncomfortable for me." I said, "That's okay. One thing about me is you can say anything you want to me, and you're not going to hurt my feelings." All three of them said, "You know, this morning you made this comment, and I just think it was inappropriate." It was funny, because when I was done with the morning session, I thought, "You know, that had a lot of edge to it."

Of particular interest is, all three of them quoted three different comments. None of them was particularly bad. It wasn't like there was one thing that was out of place. Part of that was going for the humor. In life, there is an appropriateness. It's fun to have fun, and it has its place, and I'm all for it. Like summer camp, where we just were. We try to have fun for the kids all the time. But I tell them, when you come in this room with me, we aren't in here to have fun. We're in here to study God's word and to ask God to impact and change our lives.

The Growing Seriousness of Life

As you get older, I think you get a little more relaxed, but I also think there's a seriousness that begins to set in. Susan and I had lunch yesterday, and we were talking about dying. It seemed to have more immediacy for her than for me. I don't know how we got into this, but we were talking about the process of dying, and how sometimes that's over a period of time. I think I was making fun of her because she forgot something, and we got very serious very fast.

We got into talking about nursing homes, and I said, "You know, Susan, I've been—" and it caught me off guard when I said it out loud. I said, "I've been thinking about that. I'd never put you in a home. I have a different plan." I could see in her eyes when I said it, I thought, "Uh-oh." What I'm doing is naturally role-playing what looks like potentially the future.

She said, "You know, I don't want to die." I said, "You know what's kind of weird? I do." It was a very serious conversation. What Solomon is saying is, you don't need to just go through life in this celebratory ha-ha mode, watching fifteen episodes of sitcoms.

I watched Seinfeld last night. Susan's going, "Tom, we don't need to watch Seinfeld tonight." I said, "It's one of my favorites—it's where George is in the fire, and he runs out, and he beats away Eric the Clown. What kind of name is that for a clown, Eric? How about Bozo?" She said, "Tom, how many times? You can lip sync it." I said, "Let's watch it."

What Solomon is saying is, you don't need to be watching Seinfeld and Raymond and all these things over and over again because there's a seriousness to life. Don't miss it. I was invited into a totally secular setting to do a talk.

gave me a topic. And I thought I was supposed to speak at 10, so I got there at 930. In reality, I was supposed to speak at 940. So I had no prep time. They had the podium set up on the right, and the house lights dark. I don't like that. I like the podium in the middle, and the house lights up. I want to be able to see people. I want to see their eyes. I want to get at them. Once they're dark, then I'm up here, and we aren't interacting at all.

So I'm doing this thing. I'm five minutes into it, and I've used some stuff that I know is really, really good. Zero reaction. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, what am I going to do here? They have a clock. Really interesting. I had 40 minutes. So when I get up there, the clock is at 40. The minute I say, "Good morning," it goes to 39:59 and it's counting down. So now I'm looking at my material, that stack is getting really small and I'm looking at the clock and it's going 27:14, and I'm thinking, I don't know what I'm going to do. I got done and I walked off and I said, "Okay, I've got to get this check cashed really quickly because they may give it to me."

So I'm out in the lobby and I had a half a dozen people come up to me, I don't know one of these people. Half a dozen of these people come up to me and say, "You know what, so often when somebody like you comes in, it's just kind of like joke after joke after joke, but you didn't have any humor, which is kind of sad again because I had a lot of it in there. You didn't have any humor, but you really got us thinking." That's all Solomon's saying. When Solomon writes, "Sorrow is better than laughter," He's not saying there's something wrong with laughing. He's just saying there's some serious issues in life and you need to think about it and you need to live in light of that.

The Third Delusion: Believing We Control Our Own Destiny

Here's the third delusion: that successful people, and really you could put successful out of there, just say people, that people can control their own destiny. The reality is you can't predict tomorrow's outcome. That's what James says in James chapter four. We say we'll go to such and such a city, spend a year there, make a profit, then we'll move on. James is saying, "Wait a minute, that's not true. Life is like a vapor."

Now this is not an anti-planning verse. He's not saying don't plan, not saying any of that. He's not saying don't make preparations. He's not saying don't have dreams and aspirations. But He's saying don't for a second think that you're in control here because your plans can easily be trumped by what God does. The way that I've said it in the past is we can write our plans in pencil, but we understand God has the eraser. There's an illusion here of somehow that man is in control.

The Humbling Reality of Human Control

When John Elway retired, golly, six, seven years ago now, someone sent me a copy of Rick Riley's article from Sports Illustrated. Let me read you the first two paragraphs. "When the winningest quarterback in NFL history retired, He took all that cool, all that glory, all that cash and galloped into the sunset, but somebody ran off with John Elway's happily ever after. Since He quit playing, lucky number seven has hit the worst losing streak of His life. Elway's father died, most of His business ventures flopped, His wife left Him three weeks ago, His twin sister died."

"Quote, 'When you're a quarterback, you're in control,' says Elway. 'The football's in your hand, it's fourth and 12. If the wide out doesn't make the right route, I'm going to run around and make something happen, but now things go wrong and I don't seem to have the football anymore.'" The reality is you never did.

Consider What God Has Done

Solomon writes, Ecclesiastes 7:13, "Consider what God has done." Now, that word consider means contemplate, reckon, take into account. It doesn't just mean a passing thought. This is a heavy, intentional thought process: consider, contemplate, meditate. "Consider what God has done. Who can make straight what God has made crooked? When times are good, be happy. When times are bad, consider." There's the word again. Think about this. "God has made one as well as the other." In your life, there's going to be all these things that happen that are way beyond your control.

We got done at summer camp Monday night and then the plan is to come back Tuesday morning. It was a little before nine and I had taken maybe a half hour nap that afternoon and I thought, "You know what? I'm just going to drive home." So it's Monday night and I got to get over the 8 and around and it's really easy through and then through Maricopa, through the hilly road. It's about, depending on, if Susan's in the car, it's six hours. Susan's not in the car, it's about five hours and ten minutes.

A Lesson in Surrendering Control

So I'm just moving along and I've decided I'm going to try, which is unbelievable to me, to go all the way to Yuma without having to stop to whatever, you know, restroom especially. I'm moving along and now I'm swept away. I can't get any radio stations but I have a CD that I made for a bowling tournament a couple of years ago. So I'm now singing. I'm singing, "Whoa, you know, whoa, going to the chapel." I'm singing all these old songs, "I am woman, hear me roar." That one lost some of its punch but I'm singing.

I get to, I'm coming up on El Centro and I notice that the cars on the freeway, it's dark now, so they're out there, I don't know how far, don't seem to be moving. I said, "Maybe this is a mirage." But now I'm moving at a high rate of speed and they're getting closer to me and I said, "Oh, you've got to be kidding me." I get up there, we are dead stopped on the freeway. Everybody's mad, put the window down, there's this awful smell, I can smell something. It only took about 15 or 20 minutes and we get up and what happened was there was a car that had hit something, I don't know what, and was now over on the side of the road and it had burned up, it literally burned up, that's what smelled.

And all I could think of is, you're tooling along like

The Illusion of Control

I was on my way to El Centro, to Yuma, to Maricopa, to Gilbert, and I was thinking, "I've got everything under control, I'm at the right speed." All it takes is a split second. Right after this, a coyote or a wolf—I don't know the difference—something that looked like a dog but I know it wasn't, ran in front of me. I gave it a quick little turn to the left and kind of caught myself. It was far enough away, but if that would have been close, it could have easily been one of those little quick turns that just roll you over. You can be feeling absolutely perfect, and then everything changes.

This guy, he's an ex-NFL football player who runs our dad's crew at camp. He gets there feeling absolutely perfect. That night he's saying, "I'm sick," and for 24 hours, this big NFL linebacker can't get out of bed. Then he feels good right away. Isn't that amazing? This guy's physically fit, but some little bug that you can't even see gets in and destroys his life. What Solomon said is there's an illusion of control here. You think you're in control, but you aren't.

When Control Becomes Fear

Now that can be scary. Many of the men and women I know who are very serious about their faith are very troubled by the world we live in. We live in a very dark world—it's a scary world. Even within our borders and within our communities, it's a very dark, scary world.

That's why God tells us in Philippians chapter 1, verse 6, "He who began a good work in you will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus." Don't you be worried about this—God's working in your life and He's going to keep working in your life. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13, He will never allow you to be tested beyond that which you can endure. In other words, whatever tests come into your life, God's word acknowledges that you and I are going to have hardship.

Can we read it again? "Consider when times are good, be happy. When times are bad, consider God made one as well as the other." When these things come into our life that are not particularly welcomed, they are either caused by or allowed by God. Huge statement. Anything that comes into your life is either caused by or allowed by God. If that's not true, then He's not God.

The Foundation of God's Love

Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 28, says, "And we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." We point out real quickly right there that's not everybody, but He's saying if you're a follower of Christ, God works everything together for good for you. Then He says, "What should we say about these things? Who can bring a charge against God's elect?"

Beginning in verse 35—and I did not, how pathetic is this, because I've been through this section 15 million times—I did not until yesterday see that in verses 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39 of Romans chapter 8, three times Paul talks about God's love. It's very easy to somehow get focused on us here. "And we know God causes all things to work together for good." So all of a sudden we're thinking, "Well, this is about us." This is not about us. We're the recipient of this. This is about God's love for us.

"And we know God causes all things to work together for good." Why? Because He loves you. Listen to this. Verse 35: "Who can separate us from"—here's the phrase—"the love of Christ." Not our love for Him, but His love for us. Who can break God's love for us? Then Paul lists tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, sword. "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him"—listen to it, here it is again—"through Him who loved us."

"For I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing"—and I've written in my Bible my name, meaning even I can't get out of this—"shall be able to separate us"—here it is for the third time—"from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."

Living in God's Grace

I'm going to say something to you now, to those of you who are followers of Christ, that is a huge statement. God loves us. You. That's a huge deal. I tend to be from that ilk that is on the evangelical conservative side. My friends are wound pretty tight—that's my deal. The problem with guys like us is we're big on the scripture and on doctrines, but I don't know we ever let it get applied to us. God loves you, man.

We are saved by grace—this is really important—and we continue to live in Him by grace. That's why we say, and let this sink in, this is not something where you're going to go, "I got it." This is something you have to just keep coming back to again and again and again. You need to preach the gospel to yourself every day. Every day I need to be reminded of God's grace and of God's mercy and of God's love for me, and my life is now responding to His love for me.

Practical Trust in God's Control

In this world, Solomon says when good things happen, be happy. When bad things happen or bad times come, consider God made one as well as the other. God's in control. Everything that comes into your life has first gone through Him. No reason to panic. No reason to fear. He's not going to allow you to be tempted and tested beyond that which you can endure.

No reason to not plan—plan. No reason to not be prepared—be prepared. But there's just going to be things that happen. I'm watching a baseball game last night and this guy's pitching and he's throwing just junk. He's pasting the corners. Some guy got in—I can't remember what was going on—and he's throwing him junk, junk, junk. Then he throws a fastball.

Now, just so you know, fastballs should be 90-ish, 92, 93, 94, depending. I mean, that's what they're looking for. If you're a scout now, that's what they want. This fastball's coming in at about 86 miles an hour. So it's not a fast fastball. But he's been throwing junk. All the batter's seen is 78, 79 mile an hour junk. That fastball came in and it

just froze him. It's right there. All you gotta do is hit it. It's right there. And boom, it's by him. Totally threw him. He didn't throw him a curve, he threw him a fastball. We caught him off balance.

In your life, you're going to be moving along, moving along, moving along, and God's going to pop a fastball on you, and you're going to be caught off guard. Now, here's the key. But He isn't. He's not off guard. So there's that old song that we sang all the time, but we don't sing it anymore, called "Trust and Obey," because there's no other way to be happier than Jesus to trust and obey. That's really what He's saying.

Susan and I walked a ton on the beach. And then she would say, "You know, I'm going to sit here. Why don't you go down to the end and back?" I said, "All right." So I had a lot of time by myself, which is dangerous, so a lot of thinking time. And I'm going, "God, I'm not sure, in a couple areas of my life, I'm not sure exactly what You're doing. I'm not sure exactly what You want me to do. I know I've got some stuff in my life. I know that I've got things I've got to deal with, some things I'm not happy about in my own life, my own behavior, my own thing. But I don't know what You're doing." But the phrase is important. I don't know what You're doing, but I know You're doing it. So I'll trust You to do it.

Faith: The Obedient Response

And then here's what You want. I talked to the kids about faith. Here's how we define faith. By the way, this is a great definition. The obedient response to the promises and commands of God. That's what faith is. And so there's some key words in there. Obviously, one is obedient. That's what He wants me to do. And to obey His promises and His commands. And I'm only going to know those if I study His word. That's what faith is.

Faith is not having all the answers. I don't have all the answers. In Hebrews 11, probably the only place I know of that God gives us a definition of faith, He gives it to us in Hebrews 11, verse 1. But in verse 3, He says, "By faith we know." And then He basically talks about the creation of the earth.

Here's all these things that we're arguing about. That was one of the—I watched the Republican debate, and one of the questions to one of the candidates was, "Do you believe in creation or evolution?" And then, of course, the minute you say creation or whatever, then they want to argue about it. Here's what I know. Genesis 1:1. We don't get very far into the book before He gave us the answer here. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." That's how they got here. God created them. It wasn't an accident.

The further we go into space, the more we see order. The further we go out, the more we see order. The further we look down into DNA and into the body and into the atom, we see order. Why? God created, He's the God of order. And He didn't wind this up and walk away.

Cutting People Slack

Now, let me give you the other two real quickly because time's getting away from us. It's this idea that people should pay for what they say, and the reality is be really careful how you deal with people. I read this verse to Susan, and she said, "This will be interesting to hear you teach this." Ecclesiastes 7:21, "Do not pay attention to every word people say." The phrase "pay attention" in the New American Standard is translated, "do not take seriously." In other words, and I think what Susan was saying is I don't do this very well, is cut people slack. People say stupid things. Let them say stupid things. I don't have to retaliate.

One of the things, and my biggest concern as I look around—drugs are a problem. You've got basically a 50% high school dropout rate. That's got to be a problem somewhere down the way. You've got a thousand things that are problems. One of the problems we have, my personal view, is where have all the leaders gone? In fact, Iacocca has a new book. The title is "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?"

The Problem with Followers

Here's the problem. I'm going to tell you the problem. We've got crummy leaders by and large, but there's good ones. But even if a good one came right now, we've got no followers left. We've got nobody who will follow. We want to argue about every little thing. I'm watching these candidates argue about the stupidest minutia. I'm seeing guys who agree on 95% of the stuff, and I mean big issues, argue about 5%. We have 300 million special interest groups in this country, meaning every person. We're almost unmanageable anymore.

Now you put a bunch of information on there, and now they're bringing up quotes from 35 years ago. It's hard to lead, and it's pretty hard to have a relationship, because here's what's going to happen in a relationship. You're going to say something really stupid, or I'm going to say something really stupid, and if you hold that on and hold on to it and hold on to it and never let it go, that relationship can't survive. It's the old joke. Some guy said, "When my wife and I begin to argue, she doesn't get hysterical. She gets historical." It's that idea that, "Do you remember back in the..."

The Reality of Judgment

Let me give you the last one real quickly because it's a big one. It's that somehow a smart operator can get away with murder. In other words, it seems like the evil prosper. That's how the psalmist would say it, and the reality is there is a judgment. Ecclesiastes 8:11, "When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong." Here's what he's saying. There's a day of judgment for all of us, so live like it.

I tried to tell the kids this. You need to learn how to deal with your parents. When you are at odds with your parents, the last thing you need to do is go down to your room, close the door, and spend a week not talking to them. All that does is reinforce the reason they've said no to you. "Well, that's not fair." Here's how my girls—I had one in particular. Sarah was this way. Here's what she would do. She would come to me and say,

I absolutely disagree with this. What you've told me I can do or can't do, I absolutely disagree with it. I'll tell you what, though. If you say don't do it, I won't do it. I'll obey you and I'll do it with a smile, but it isn't fair. I don't think it's right. I said, good. You're not doing it.

There's an idea that somehow we need to make everything right, and God says vengeance is mine. What Solomon is saying is this: there are these things that look like they're real and they aren't. It seems like if you have something that's good, you can never get too much of it. The reality is, yeah, you can. Senses will never be satisfied.

It looks like celebration is better than sorrow, but the reality is sorrow plays a role in our life. It looks like you can be in control if you plan and you have your own destiny. The reality is you can't even control tomorrow. You can't even control today. It looks like people should pay for what they say, and the reality is one day they will.

Solomon's Relentless Message

Solomon continues on this relentless march to tell us that in this world, everything is meaningless. His phrase, "in this world," meaning as I look at life in this temporary horizontal plane, and next week we continue that beat. Here it is: Life is tough. Life has no meaning in and of itself. And then two weeks, He gives us the answer to that.

Pretty intense to me, isn't it? The same thing. Why? We don't get it. We still somehow keep saying, "This ought to work this way." It doesn't.

"My ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts are higher than yours," says the Lord. God sees things differently than we do. And our mission is to not change His mind, but to understand His reality, who He is, how we work and live in this world.