Finding Life Balance: Ecclesiastes 3:16 - 4:6

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Here we are, it's Friday, Another day with the Bible Guys and Wesley. Yes, yes, I think a lot of people are returning stuff today. I think I think so yeah, oh no, what am I gonna do with all this junk? Right? So now we're returning it? Standing in line? Whatever. Well, hey, we missed Chris this week. Yeah, he was off this whole week. He'll join us. I think he's going to join us next week. I'm hoping. So that's fine. We hope you had a great time Chris and Liz. I hope you can tolerate the podcast without your husband being on the podcast. And well, the one thing is Liz doesn't have to worry about what he's going to say my wife. You being a public speaker, does your wife fret and worry about what might come out of your mouth? Only when I get ready to tell stories? Oh yeah, Like when the stories come, it's like, oh, what easy about to say? My wife? One? She doesn't have a poker face. You always know what you know? Bonnie? Well, right, so Bonnie and Wesley work in the same office, and so she can't ever hide what's going on. If she's happy, she's delighted. If she's nervous, she looks terrified. If she's mad, she looks like she's going to burn the building down. There's no there's no in between, no in between, and you always know what she's like. So she has so much anxiety when I speak, because sometimes things just come out I don't want to say. And so for years she sat in the green room and watched on the screen. She'd be at church in the building, but she couldn't be because I would say something and everybody look at her. She knew she couldn't hide it, and finally I just told her, I said, it doesn't matter. Just just let your reaction be your reaction and go out and be in the car. But for years she doesn't struggle with this. So our wives they suffer because of the things we do. So Liz, you got to you got to reprieve this week. That's what we're trying to say. But maybe next week is I'll be back and that'll be well, it's on him at. Well. So today Wesley Desiree has a very important segment for us. Yeah, and this is a one must go so we had to do this or that kind of a thing. So which one stays and which one goes away forever? See that's and when it goes away forever, I'm gonna say, not just goes away forever for you, but for all of humanity. Yeah, okay, just so, just for clarifications sake. So the first one is which one stays and which one goes forever? Eggnog or fruitcake? Wow, this is a tough one. I'm gonna have to go with fruitcake. Really, I can bear the fruitcake. I don't know who came up with putting candy things and fruits and bread it. Just yeah, just so so, I have never ever had a good sip of eggnog in my life. I hate it. But I have had, on one or two occasions, pretty good fruitcake. Now, I'm pretty sure ninety nine percent of all the fruitcakes are the same fruitcake getting passed around for the last three decades. It's the same. Nobody actually eats it, but I and I was in a priest's home, a Coptic priest's home in Egypt, and it was near Christmas time, and he said he made a joke about fruitcake, but he said, I think it was his wife or his daughter had made it. He said, just take a bite, and it was delicious. The fruit was slightly candied but still had juice, and. It fresh made. The sweetness of the cake itself was really really good. She had like a glazing on the top of it. I probably ate five I ate more fruitcake in that sitting in your whole life than all of the fruitcake before or since. It was really good. So I have had a good fruitcake. I've never had. A good eggnolge. So I'm gonna ban personally, gonna ban, and you're banning fruitcake, all right. So we're divided on that one. Which one the Christmas tree or holiday lights? I gotta say the holiday lights. It's a thing to get rid of. I'm gonna go with that one. It's kind of like, you need a Christmas tree for the holiday. That's right, That's right, Christmas season. So yeah, So we have a tall ceiling in our great room area in our home, and my wife got a new Christmas tree this year. It's really tall. Okay, it's tall. It's like twelve feet tall or something. Yeah, and it's really beautiful and it has like a gajillion lights in it. Oh man, so it's hard. So was it pre lit? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so those are the ones to get there lit fabulous. So it's hard to have like a super great Christmas tree without the lights. Yeah, but I hate hanging. Yeah. So if you could have all pre lit Christmas lights yeah on everything. Yeah, if you can buy a house and they had little Christmas lights in it, you couldn't see them until you turned them on. I do have a neighbor they got these new L E D like Christmas lights and they just leave them up all year. Oh they and sometimes they'll turn them on periodically with different you can do different colors, hues and different things. So can you see them? So you can't really see them until they like turn them on. But it just seems weird. It's June and yeah, and it's close to July. And I get it, you know, red, white and blue, and I get the concept. But yeah, no, I think. I'm going to agree with you on the Christmas lights thing. Let's get rid of those. Okay, here's the next one. Gingerbread houses are Christmas cookies. I'm not a big gingerbread house person. So let's sit with you on that. I can go. I am with it. Get it out of here. Yeah, you need Christmas cookies? I think I know the answer to this one. Also or home Alone? Yeah, which one do we get rid of? I'm gonna say, el oh, no, all right, get out, just get out. I'm going to carry the shows by myself. This is I don't know that kind of negativity in my life. Wesley just never seen it. So I want in the world. I love Home Alone. But okay, candy canes or peppermint. Bark Ooh, this is tough. I know. I have a strong opinion about this one. I'm gonna say, only because it's a classic. I'm going to say, if I had to get rid of one, get rid of the peppermint bark only because candy canes are I mean, have you had peppermint bark? It's good? But can canes are classic good, I mean they are classic. I got all right. You and I are not on the same page on anything except Christmas lights. And you said, just like Elf. Two, I love Elf. What are you talking about? All right? And gingerbread houses? Those are the two? Were all right? Well, speaking of being on the same page. Hopefully you're on the same page I am. With regard to reading Ecclesiastics, chapter three, verse sixteen. Yeah, that was a good pivot. Yeah, yeah, it was. So. One of our goals is the cheesiest pivots possible on these diffee games into the things. So we have been reading the writings of Solomon for quite some time. Solomon is the wisest man who ever lived, apart from Jesus, and he wrote the Book of Proverbs, which has so many practical, everyday living things. He wrote the Book of Song of Solomon, which is all about romance and romance and relationship and intimacy. And then this book is written towards the end of his life where he's made some significantly bad choices and he's starting to think, maybe I wasted my life, and he's trying to find the meaning of life. So then he says this in Ecclesiastes, chapter three, verse sixteen, says, I also noticed that under the sun there's evil in the courtroom. Yes, even in the courts of law are corrupt. I said to myself. In due season, God will judge everyone, both good and bad, for all their deeds. I also thought about the human condition. How God proves to people that they're like animals, For people and animals share the same fate. Both breathe and both must die. Well, that's an encouraging sayment. Well that's it for the day, Jeff, we will see. You next time. Meaningless, he says, how meaningless both go to the same place. They came from dust, and they returned to dust. For who can prove that the human spirit goes up and the spirit of animals goes down into the earth. So I say that there is nothing better for people than to be happy in their work. That is why we're here. No one will bring us back from death to enjoy life after we die again. I observed all the oppression that takes place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. The oppressors have great power and their victims are helpless. So I concluded that the dead are better off in the living. But most fortunate of all are those who are not yet born, for they have not seen all the evil that is done under the sun. Then I observed that most people are motivated the success because they envy their neighbors. But this too is meaningless, Like chasing the wind, fools fold their idle hands, leading them to ruin. And yet better to have one handful with quietness than two handfuls with hard work and chasing the wind. Yeah, this guy is miserable. Yeah, he is definitely not having a good time. Yes, and his conclusions are not with everything else that he's written. This is just a really bad day for him writing that nothing really matters. Yeah, that verse four, I'm skipping down a lot. But in chapter four, verse four, when it says, then I observe that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors, I'm like. That is so true. How we were motivated to work more, to do more, to get more stuff, just to run with the joneses, so to speak. Yeah, see, I think that's hilarious. The note in a life application study by will say some people are lazy while others are workaholics. Lazy people, seeing the futility of dashing about for success, idle away their time and hurt both themselves and those who depend on them. Workaholics are often driven by envy, greed, and the constant desire to stay ahead of everyone else. Both extremes are foolish, and irresponsible. The answer is to work hard, but with moderation, take time to enjoy the other gifts God has given and realize that it's God who gives out the assign the rewards, not us. Yeah right. My dad, i mentioned in an earlier episode, used to work at Ford and he mentioned to me at a young age, I'll never forget this, to never live off your overtime as a young kid, my dad telling me that, because if they ever pull the overtime, and now you're in trouble. So he worked with this guy who every ounce of overtime they made available, this guy worked. He was there all the time. That the guy's dog didn't even know him anymore. I mean he worked and worked. The guy's dog barked anymore. Like anytime he could get overtime, that guy worked it. Wow. The guy retired within six months. He was dead. Wow. And other purpose, The point is what was all that for? So you made a lot of money, great, but you didn't get to enjoy any of that. For all your labor, you don't get to enjoy it. So yeah, just crazy. Yeah, you got to live life while your life. Yeah, So if you look at your job and your opportunities as ways to fund your life. Right, then you kind of have a balance there. And there are seasons when you need to work harder. You're saving up for a house, or you're doing a kids or in school or something. So you work harder, you put in more time to provide. But then you need to also make sure that with that push, there's also a little bit of pull right where you pull back a little bit and you catch your breath and you take meaningful time off with your family and those kinds of things. And you know, if you only save and you never spend, then you never get benefit of what you saved. You. If you only spend and never save, then you're not You don't have any preparation for the future, and one little catastrophe's going to wipe you out. So there has to be a balance. And I think what Solomon found is finding through here is there was no real balance in his life. It was all or nothing all the time, and it was over indulgence in every area of his life. And then he's frustrated, so he keeps coming back. If you notice he's come back multiple times saying so, really, maybe the only thing that really benefits is to learn to enjoy life a little bit better. It seems to me that he pushed so hard he never did enjoy life. Now his writings warned against never pushing and being lazy, and then you don't have anything to enjoy, right, So there is this balance on that. And so for the person sitting at listening today or driving listening today, whatever, if you're hyper driven to achieve, usually that's driven by a sense of a desire to be better than other people, or to have more, or sometimes it's a materialism thing whatever, or just a sense of my worth is in what I produce, right, and so that leads towards workoholism, and your family will suffer, the people around you will suffer, and so will you physically. You need to take a break. The other side of it is if you're the kind of person who goes, I don't want to work, it's too hard, nothing ever works out for me. Everybody else has and I don't have, and all this kind of stuff. Well, then Solomon say, how about getting up and working harder. Go out and find a new job, Go do a thing, get some more education so you can get a get into a better career, try something new, work harder, take some risks and see if you can't find a way to get a business started or something, do something, and so on both sides of those. And I think humans have a really hard time finding balance in life. But balance seems to be throughout this book. Seems to be what he's wishing for, can't find. Yeah, and you made a great point a moment ago about your worth not being in your work. Right. For a lot of people, that's the case where the title that they have on their job, the position that they hold, their identity is tied to those things. The problem with that is if you ever lose one of those things, the position or the title, now you feel like you have no point and no purpose. That's right. Yeah, So yeah, it's very important that we never tie our identity into our work status. And then he talks here about how he doesn't feel like he's any more significant than an animal. Of course, we know throughout the rest of scripture, the Bible talks about how much more important we are to God, even than God cares for and provides for the animals. But he loves us. We're made in his image. And this is one of the lies that the devil plays with us a lot of times is that our life doesn't mean anything, and he hates the fact that we're made in God's image. Right, No other nothing else ever created, is in God's image. God loves us, He made us in his image, and so we have intrinsic value just because we're made in the image of God. So those of us that are Christians, we should walk. We are princes and princesses in the Kingdom of God. We are literally the sons and daughters of the King of the universe. We are made to reflect him. We are made to represent him. Of course, we are his servants as well as his children. But we have great purpose just by the fact that God chooses to allow us to breathe breath right, and to eat food and to walk on this planet. And so then finding that purpose and leaning into that is incredibly important. He's depressed because he's forgotten that he doesn't remember and it just feels like he's no more significant than an animal, right, And so the words he's saying here are not true words. They're just the words he's feeling. In the moment it felt true to him. And then he moves from there. Everything's useless to powerful people abuse weak people, and man, this world is screwed up. And these two arguments are often things that people who are struggling with ideas of faith want to talk about. Is my life doesn't matter. What does it matter? Right, We're just going to die? Or the other side of it is why do bad things happen? Right? Those are things and these are the same exact things. So if you ever asked those questions struggle those things, so did Solomon. There's hope when we get to the end of this book, you're going to find out Solomon figured it out, right, He hinted at it the other day. We didn't comment on it. Do you remember that phrase where Solomon said, a couple of days ago, God has placed eternity in the hearts of man. Yeah, right, Yeah. Solomon starts figuring it out, but by the end of the book he finally goes, ah, I got it now. Yeah, I figured out what really matters. But not yet he hasn't figured out yet. One of the things that I'll say, Jeff, is that this actually resonates with me because it's real. Yeah, and this is what a lot of people deal with. It's kind of like if you as you read through this, He's on like an emotional rollercoaster. He's up and down and up and down. And I just love that the Bible as it's giving us information, it's not glossing over the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's showing us everything. And we go through a lot of these same things, and we've said a lot of these same things too, So I. Well, as you read through the Book of Psalms, there's times when Solomon's dad, David, is writing and he's mad at God. Yeah, he said, come on, are you serious? My enemies are prospering and I'm suffering. I'm the one hiding and they're the ones sleeping at home with their children. And he's like, I don't even feel like you're paying attention to me. You chose me, you said you were gonna bless me, and here I am running from my life and my enemies are indulging in all the things that I should be benefiting from. And he gets mad at God. And it's amazing. God doesn't get mad at David. God doesn't crush me. Right now, I'm mad at You're gonna go find somebody else instead. God inspired this according to the Holy Spirit, and decided to put it in the Bible because God acknowledges that we're humans and that our feelings there are. Our feelings are real to us. They're not always legitimate. Sometimes we can be thinking or feeling the wrong thing, but feelings are real, and so God is not offended by them. What God seems to do is celebrate the fact that David is coming and complaining to God. Right, that means you know when you're mad at God? Did you know? That means it proves you believe in God. I've had people. I've had people go I don't believe in God? Why because I prayed and asked God to heal my grandmother and she died. Anyways, and I've been mad at Him ever since. Who are you mad at if you don't believe in him? Right? You believe in God. The fact that you're mad at God means you believe in Him, and so God is not angry at you for being angry at him. If you're moving towards Him, which is what David did. It's even what you find Solomon doing by the end of the book. By the end of this Ecclesiastes is Solomon is moving towards God. In that so God is not offended by your feelings, and it's not like you're going to get zapped lightning going to strike you from heaven because you have the wrong feelings or the wrong opinion in the moment. Instead, you need to keep moving towards God. And what I've seen in my life is, you know, after having talked with thousands and thousands and thousands of people about things of faith, when people come to a crisis moment, they either run to God or from God. Right, those are the only two options. And so I think as you read this desperation that you have that you find in Solomon, you're not really sure at this point in the book where is he going to go? You find out he moves towards God's way, but he's struggling right now, and under the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit. He wanted this book in the Bible to say it's not a sin to struggle, you know, so if you struggle with mental health issues, or if you struggle with depression, or if you struggle, it's not a sin to have to be sick. It's not a sin to have struggles. The answer is go towards God. In those struggles, and the hope and the freedom and the deliverance that you need is in moving closer to God. Don't run from him. Running from him is all of the futility that Solomon says is in life is true apart from God. It's everything he says, all these other things they're true without God. With God, they're not true. So God's the one who flips the script for you, and so you run to him during these difficult times. Yeah, and I'm going to help someone, Jeff, you mentioned that idea of I prayed and I don't feel like God heard me. Oh yeah. And there's a verse in the New Testament that talks about how his ear is near to the righteous. That's right, his ear is near to those who are in right standing with God through Jesus. So not based on anything that you've. Done, but His ear is near to you through Christ Jesus because of what Jesus did dying on the cross for us. So we have the confidence then that whenever we pray as Christians, God hears us every single time. That's right. Now, there's still a timing issue. God will still choose to perform that thing when he sees fit. But there's never a time that a son or daughter cries out to their father and the father doesn't here. That's right, yeah, King David, Salomon's father wrote, God is close to the broken hearted. Yeah right. James tells us draw near to God, and he'll draw near to you. Peter says the same kind of thing, right, when you draw close to him. Jeremiah tells us, if you seek me, you will find me, says the Lord. Right. So the answer in your troubled times, like Solomon is clearly spiraling out of control here emotionally, the answer is to move towards God, to pursue him, even when you don't feel like he's there. Stay with it, keep going forward. Surround yourself with other believers who do have strong faith and have seen God work in their lives. Remind yourself again, this is why I have friends who are really really strong on journaling. And I have one friend that every year, at the end of the year, he sits down with his journals, and he always has three or four journals. He's filled because he journals every day and he's a very disciplined person. But the last week of the year, between Christmas and New Year, he goes through and he puts an index to his journals so that he can go back and when he's talking about answer to prayers, when he feels like God doesn't answer prayers anymore, he go back several years back and. Just look at all that hel God answer this, answer. That, And he said it reminds him for him to be able to sit down and remind himself specifically of times that God answered prayer. Reminds him that even though god' and I answer my prayer today, will or whatever. And he journals about everything in his life. Right, I'm not disciplined like that, but he does. And so if you're a journaler kind of a person, that's good to putting those things. Now, go back and reread and see where God the good times, yeah, as well as the bad, but go back and read the good times. So when God did show up and he did answer your prayers, and it reminds you God gives us. The Bible says that he gave us all of these things in the Bible for our example. So when we go and we say, hey, God took care of David. God took care of Daniel, God took care of Joseph, and he got. One of his, and I'm one of his. Hey, Shadrag Meshack and at Ago went through the fire and Jesus was right there with him, and then not a hair on their head was singed. If God can do it for them, he'll do it for me too, because he wrote this book for my example. So I'm not a journaler, but I am a strong student of the Bible, and so if God did it for them, he can do it for me too. Yeh. The Bible says God isn't a respector of persons, so if he did it for them. He will do it for me too. That's right. And so Solomon is wallowing right now, and we turn what two more pages? Three more pages? Four more pages? Yeah, four more pages, and he's gonna go, Oh, I figured it out. It's like nothing matters more than walking with God. And so that's what we'll do next week, is we'll finish that up and we'll look into it. But be encouraged. Run to God even when you're struggling, and when you draw near to him, he'll draw near to you. Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, thank you for joining us this week. We hope you had an amazing week with your family and we look forward to coming back and joining with you again in the new year. God bless you. We'll see you next week.