Enjoyment of life ...

... fear of God and building a life with God's wisdom

Would it surprise you to know that the fastest growing category of nonfiction book at present is self-help? Particularly in recent years, the self-help industry has catapulted by 11% between 2013 to 2019 (that’s something like 18.6 million volumes per year!). As a genre it has possibly existed as long as writing itself, from ancient Egyptians “Sebayt”, a type of ‘Codes of Conduct’ scrolls, through to the 1859 best-seller ‘Self-Help’ by Samuel Smiles (from which the genre has since taken its title). When I happened upon these little factoids I repeatedly saw the Bible itself listed as one of humanity’s most influential self-help books. I suppose I see where that view comes from, but it made me chuckle. The Bible’s message is an inversion of that narrative in so many ways, leading us to reliance on God over our own knowledge or striving. It did make me reflect on the journey my own relationship with the Bible has taken over the years which, in many ways, was one from ‘Ultimate self-help book’ to the living word of God.
 
I couldn’t quite say when or why it started, but possibly it began with one day at Sunday School, hearing the parable of building houses Jesus speaks in Matthew 7:24-27. This idea of our lives being a house we build on the rock or build on the sand took root deeply in my mind. I was utterly determined to win this challenge I perceived as being put forward. At the same time that this inner mission was starting to solidify I was also grappling intensely, perhaps relatedly, with fearfulness and anxiety. For years if a family member was even a little late getting home or at picking up their phone I was convinced they’d been in an unfortunate accident, every illness was probably terminal, and anything I started was probably going to fall short. Because you see I had started to perceive a dissonance when I observed the world, that hard work and wisdom and knowledge did not necessarily yield reward. More perplexing was when I saw this play out amongst fellow believers, because to my young mind it meant that either 

• God could not prevent bad things happening to his people
• God allows bad things happening to his people; or
• Bad things happen to God’s people when they fall short somewhere and leave the door open to it, ie. some part of their lives is built on the sand.

This third option was simultaneously the most horrifying and the most reassuring because it offers us something options 1 and 2 don’t - control. We can minimise the risks of pain or loss if we simply identify the do’s and do not’s in the Bible. It didn’t occur to me then that I was effectively trying to undo Jesus’ work on the Cross, where he fulfilled the law perfectly, by putting myself under the law directly.
 
I look nowadays at 2 Corinthians 3:6; “We do not tell them that they must obey every law of God or die; but we tell them there is life for them from the Holy Spirit. The old way, trying to be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments, ends in death; in the new way, the Holy Spirit gives them life.” I see the truth in this, in the ways I sought to answer the question of ‘how should I build my life?’. The impossible burden of trying to control everything and being accountable for everything made my life smaller, my goals lesser, and my joys brief. I lived permanently in the future, letting possibilities and fears override any awareness of my present. I began struggling to engage openly in corporate worship and fellowship. I always felt inwardly convicted of being unfairly pessimistic and cynical when my reaction to the light of God was just to notice how much deeper the shadows of our fallen world seemed in contrast to it.
 
It was then that I ‘met’ the two books of the Bible that now hold a special place in my heart, Ecclesiastes and Job. Somehow these two books, despite in some ways being so focused on the more fearful aspects of living - loss, unfairness, uncertainty - provided me with immense and immediate relief.
 
Particularly when it came to Job. Death? Yes! Destruction? Yes! Unwarranted bad things suddenly striking a just and blameless man? Yes! Goodness, it’s all here, all my fears in one short Bible story. Brilliant! Let’s skip ahead. How does God explain it all in a neat verse? Oh - he doesn’t. Where does he leave the list of instructions to make sure it doesn’t happen to me? Ah, no - not one of those either. Right then. Does it show how all bad events lead directly to a good one that make it all worth it? Not quite. In the end all Job lost is restored in a double portion, without Job ever getting to know why it even happened in the first place or with an assurance that it couldn’t happen again. After this first read through I put Job’s story down, more than a little distressed, putting it out of mind. I felt sure there was an answer hidden in the text somewhere that needed drawing out, perhaps with more study. So I turned to Ecclesiastes, given it precedes Job I hoped it held a key for unlocking it. Once again, I felt so seen by its words:
 
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and turns to the north;
round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from, there they return again.
All things are wearisome, more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come
will not be remembered by those who follow them (Ecclesiastes 1:1-11)
 
The teacher then puts forward a notion that I found the most challenging - “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” It directly attacked the foundation I had been building my life on all these years, the accrual of Godly knowledge and wisdom as a shield against suffering. I reflected again on Job, his argument with God and God’s response, which provided no answer. All God does in response to Job’s accusations of cruelty and negligence is ask him questions - “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”, “Where does light live, or where does darkness reside?”. He emphasises to Job the impossible divide between man and God, where God is operating at a level of complexity no human mind could discern with any amount of knowledge or wisdom.
 
In scanning the text again and again, I was floored by a proclamation Job makes in the midst of his distress - “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes I, and not another.”
 
Here in the, possibly, oldest book in the bible. Far before the birth of Christ or creation of the nation of Israel, Job proclaims the coming Messiah, the eternal life and resurrection he offers us, and the bridging of the divide between God and fallen humanity. Suddenly I didn’t care about the answer to why did Job suffer; I was back in Sunday School taking a very different perspective on that parable.
 
Because the rock we are building on is not knowledge, wisdom, prayer, church attendance, duty, religious practice, Bible memorisation or any other such thing - it is Christ. We build our lives upon the foundation stone that is Christ Jesus, and we build by faith. Our trials, sufferings, losses, and battles do not mark us out as failures but rather our enduring of them in faith and hope mark us out as God’s chosen people.
 
Ecclesiastes ends on a much more positive note than it begins, with the teacher proclaiming “I have seen what is best for people here on earth. They should eat and drink and enjoy their work, because the life God has given them on earth is short. God gives some people the ability to enjoy the wealth and property he gives them, as well as the ability to accept their state in life and enjoy their work. They do not worry about how short life is, because God keeps them busy with what they love to do.”
 
This is the life Job returned to after his troubles and the Word states the Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former, and he dies an old man full of years. Life is full of mysteries and challenges, but God is faithful and good. We will not know all the answers and we cannot remove pain from our lives, but we can take joy and solace in the simple beauties God has placed before us to enjoy each day. May we continue to seek him out daily with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Photo by Shiromani Kant on Unsplash