When You Don't Have the Answers

When my kids were little, they were curious about everything. How does the car engine work? Why is thunder so loud? How tall will I get? Why…? I often didn’t know the answer to their questions and had to do some research in order to respond. Sometimes, my answer was, “Let’s look at a book on that topic” or one time, I gave my son a model car engine for him to build.

We live in a day when answers are just a click away. We merely have to ask our phone a question and we receive a ready response. In some ways, this makes us think there is an answer to every question. That we can know everything.

But the Bible teaches otherwise.

In Ecclesiastes 3, the Preacher makes observations about the world. He notes that there are seasons in life, including a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest what is planted, a time to weep and a time to laugh. Then he writes:

“I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away” (Ecc. 3:10-15).

God has given us tasks to do in life and they happen in seasons and times that he determines. Whatever the season we are in, there is beauty found there. He then tells that God has placed eternity into man’s heart. We know deep down of God’s existence and his work in this world. We know deep down that we are created beings, dependent upon our Creator. But, we don’t know everything. “…he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (v.11). We are finite beings. We do not know the end from the beginning. We don’t know the answer to all the questions. We don’t know how to do all the things. We don’t know why things happen as they do. We are not God.

What do we do with that? As people who want all the answers—who want to ask Siri why we continue to struggle or when our trial will end or how to navigate a difficult decision—the Preacher is telling us to be okay with the fact that we don’t know. To trust that God knows. To rest in the sovereignty of God. There are things he has revealed to us and the rest only he alone knows: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). He is the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 1:8). He is before all things and he holds all things together (Col. 1:17). While we cannot know all things, we were created by an infinite God who does. He not only knows, he determines what is to come and ensures it comes to pass. As his creatures, we are called to fear him, delight in him, and keep our gaze fixed on him (vv.14-15). As we do, we find joy and contentment in what God provides, in the season he provides it (vv.12-13).

Matthew Henry commented on this passage: “Though we see not the complete beauty of Providence, yet we shall see it, and a glorious sight it will be, when the mystery of God shall be finished. Then every thing shall appear to have been done in the most proper time and it will be the wonder of eternity…We must wait with patience for the full discovery of that which to us seems intricate and perplexed, acknowledging that we cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end, and therefore must judge nothing before the time. We are to believe that God has made all beautiful. Every thing is done well, as in creation, so in providence, and we shall see it when the end comes, but till then we are incompetent judges of it. While the picture is in drawing, and the house in building, we see not the beauty of either; but when the artist has put his last hand to them, and given them their finishing strokes, then all appears very good. We see but the middle of God’s works, not from the beginning of them (then we should see how admirably the plan was laid in the divine counsels), nor to the end of them, which crowns the action (then we should see the product to be glorious), but we must wait till the veil be rent, and not arraign God’s proceedings nor pretend to pass judgment on them. Secret things belong not to us.”

I am just like my children in that I long to know all the answers. I don’t like to wait or live in the unknown. I want to know everything that is going to happen before it does. But God is a good Father and I know him. I know that he makes all things beautiful—even the messy, frayed fabric of my life. I can’t judge it as I see it now. I must wait for its completion when I will stand in wonder and awe at all God has done.

I don’t have the all the answers. But I trust the One who does.

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Vanity Under the Sun

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecc. 1:2).

I’ve been reading Ecclesiastes in my quiet time. Every time I read through the book, it feels like someone turned on the light in the dark recesses of my life, pointing out things I hadn’t noticed before. It would be like if a gemologist were to look up close at my wedding ring and point out that it doesn’t really have diamonds in it after all. I’d then look at it with new eyes and notice its flaws. What once was shiny would quickly lose its luster. I’d realize that what I once thought was valuable, had no value at all. This is what the teacher does in Ecclesiastes; he shows us the vanity of life under the sun.

Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, the teacher shares insight into his own life experiences. He has pursued everything there is to pursue in life. He’s tried it all. He’s accumulated it all. He’s witnessed it all. And he’s found little to write home about. He sums it up as meaningless or vanity. The Hebrew word used for “vanity” in Ecclesiastes 1:2 is hebel. It means vapor or breath. It’s a word that describes the transitory nature of things. It’s like a breath that is breathed out and immediately dissipates in the air. Hebel describes things that have no form or structure, they are empty; they cannot contain anything.

The teacher uses this word throughout the book to describe life “under the sun.” That is, life from our earthly, finite perspective. The teacher observes that people work hard, they pursue and enjoy the pleasures of this life, and then they die. All that they have worked for is then passed on to someone else who won’t appreciate it or will likely lose or waste it. All the pursuits and pleasures of life, once experienced, are gone. The things we put our time and energy into all too soon fade away. They lose their luster. They show themselves worthless.

Vapor. Breath. Meaningless.

I can’t help but think of the early church father, Augustine. He pursued the pleasures and vanities of this life. He looked for meaning and purpose in things, relationships, knowledge, and experience, but found them fleeting. He wrote in his work, Confessions, about his life, “For it was my sin, that not in Him, but in His creatures—myself and others—I sought for pleasures, sublimities, truths, and so fell headlong into sorrows, confusions, errors.” He even tried various religions and philosophies, thinking they would help him find what he was looking for, but he still felt restless and lost. It wasn’t until he read the Bible and was converted to Christ that his restlessness finally stilled. He wrote, “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose {rest} in Thee.” When Augustine found Christ, he found what his heart longed for all along.

It isn’t until we see things from a different perspective, from “above the sun” rather than “under the sun,” that things change. It’s when we see the world in light of eternity that we see what truly matters—what truly satisfies. Then we see that the pleasures we’ve labored so hard to achieve are really like playing in the mud when we could enjoy a trip to the sea. As C.S. Lewis describes, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” The truth is, the little joys of life exist to point us to the greatest Joy. We’ve wasted precious time dancing with shadows when we could have experienced Life itself.

Ecclesiastes reminds my heart how easily I confuse the shadows for the substance. It reminds me that when I focus my life and heart on things “under the sun” and forget about the One who rules “above the sun” I am only grasping at vapor, with what is fleeting and temporary. The teacher reminds me that life is meant for something greater, for Someone greater. That real life—real fulfilling, lasting, meaningful, glorious life—is found only in the One who created it.

The teacher ends his book with this conclusion: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc. 12:13). We don’t know much about what is above the sun other than that God rules over the universe. We don’t know much about eternity past, other than that God has always been there. We don’t know what will occur in eternity future, just that it is in God’s hands. In the span of time, we are but vapor; our lives are merely a breath. The conclusion then is this, to live our lives in the fear of the One who knows all things. To live for his glory and praise. To live for and pursue that which is lasting, that which is eternal, that which is of substance.

And that’s where real Joy resides, not in the shadow, but in the substance.

For the Cynical Heart

In our homeschool, I’ve been going through a cycle of World History with my children. We began with ancient civilizations and have moved slowly through the centuries each year. Most recently, we studied WWII.

Each time I read an event in history, one of the kids inevitably mutters, “Another story of someone trying to conquer and take over the world.” They groan as they hear stories of dictators and rulers making promises, because they know that in the end, they will rule with an iron fist—until the next dictator comes along.

Cynicism Under the Sun

Doesn’t life seem that way? Just another story in a stream of the same stories we’ve heard over and over. This is how the Teacher felt in the book of Ecclesiastes. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new?” It has been already in the ages before us” (1:9-10).

That negative and pessimistic tone is one of cynicism...To read the rest of this post, visit Christward Collective.