Progress & Purpose….

I was journaling this morning as I had my quiet time and I was thinking a lot about the first couple chapters of Ecclesiastes as it relates to Tara, Benaiah, and myself. Over lunch a little and break later in the day, I have had a chance to try to type my thoughts up. Please be patient…I may ramble a bit :) Sorry in advance for that…

Solomon used to seem so morbid to me, but the older I get and the more wisdom God decides to give me…the more I realize that Solomon had quite a few things right. He says in Ecclesiastes 1:18…
“..For with much wisdom comes much sorrow and with much knowledge comes much grief”

With all our advances, there really is no true “grand” thing that is new and never been done before. There are some advances, but none of them are what I would call a “basic” advance. Let me explain…

With each new medical miracle, there is a new disease to take it’s place. For each technological advance, we complain that it adds to life’s complexity and bemoan the “simple” life. Don’t get me wrong I love technology (my wife will tell you this is true :))….and this isn’t depressing to me…just recognizing it to be more and more true.

Our lives reduced down to the simplest things are….life…health…food…shelter…common denominators if you will. And another common denominator highlighted exhaustively in Ecclesiastes…is death…a common denominator of everyone’s life is…that it ends someday. So these are the common denominators…the “basics” if you will.

Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 2:3…
“…I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their life…”

So he threw himself into many endeavors and at the end of it he says in verse 10…
“…my heart took delight in all my work and this (the delight) was the reward for all my labor.”

At the end of it…all that these endeavors gave him…was a delight in the doing of them.

Naiah...my son…will never know the joys of working alongside his dad….laboring with me on one of my never-ending (as Tara’s puts them :)) projects. He will never know the joys of building…creating….learning with us. However, he will also never know the burden of work…the heartache of loss…and the grief of the death of someone close to him. While I would LOVE for Naiah to know the joys of life….I am comforted in some ways that he will also never know the heartache of it.

This is not a morbid thought…just a knowledge that although we’d like to reduce our lives down to the physical experience…it is much more….if we are honest with ourselves…we all know it. My son…will experience the best part of life. He will know every moment he is alive…that he is loved. Never will he know rejection…or someone withholding love from him. He will go from the best of one world (our arms) to the best of the next (being with Jesus).

I have come to understand that my wanting him to stay…to live…is more for Tara and myself…because we love him already and do not want to know the loss of our son. But we also love him enough to let him go…to a much better…much higher existence.

Even though I would give my own life to rescue my son from death…that too…is somewhat empty because I know regardless of what I do…someday he would also pass.

So here is the end of it…Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 7:1
“A good name is better than fine perfume and the day of death better than the day of birth”

Was Solomon saying he was sorry for having lived…I do NOT think so…just that to die actually is the beginning of real life as it was meant to be lived. Solomon was not being morbid…just recognizing that it is wise to be ready to meet one’s maker.

I am ready to meet my maker…not because I have lived some exemplary life (far from it)…or done all the right things…or that at least these good things outweigh the bad…no. I am ready to meet Him because His son and I…are friends…brothers by adoption. I am also more certain than I have ever been that we will see our son soon. That we WILL enjoy life together…just not here.

I am also certain that some reading this blog might not be as certain of their destination or of their purpose for being here. Hear this from Tara, Benaiah, and myself….our purpose…our whole reason for being here…is to know…to enjoy…and to give glory to the one who made us. Some folks run from this and invent all sorts of things that create the illusion of progress…of purpose. But hear me…we CANNOT run from our creator. To face Him is inevitable… and… we’re either ready… or we’re not.

I look forward to seeing my son…and my maker… and I am certain when I close my eyes in this life…I will see them together when I open them again. If you take anything from this blog...please take this…you can KNOW Him as well.

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