Ecclesiastes is a book that contains a wealth of instruction for us. But for me, I believe one of its greatest lessons, most priceless teaching treasures is this, that if we allow the gift that God bestows upon us to rule over us, only misery awaits us; His gift to us is to be our servant and not our master.
We know that Solomon when asked by God for anything he desired, he asked for wisdom. Ecclesiastes is Solomon's confession, his confession of how his life went awry as wisdom became his task master. The phrase he repeatedly uses "this too is meaningless" is not to say that there are no absolutes in this world, that nothing has meaning for we see in this very writing by Solomon that he continually gives meaning to mysteries and instruction that he expects we will heed. This phrase he uses is a part of his confession, that we should not make the same mistake he made, that we are not given the gift of wisdom so we can spend every waking moment trying solve the great mysteries of life as there are many mysteries we will never fully understand. Solomon is confessing that he allowed wisdom to drive him, that he became obsessive in regards to his need for more and more answers and compulsive in his search to find those answers. This is evil's greatest weapon, to turn that which God intended to be an empowering gift to equip us to serve others into something we serve, something that controls us and ultimately marginalizing our gift and our life's impact.
What is your gift? Are you a genius with numbers, is compassion your strength, are an organizing administrative prodigy, does music flow from your life with ease, is oration your treasure, laughter your gift...? Don't' serve your gift, have dominion over the garden of your life!
Pastor Fred
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