Before we get into the pew I would like to share a little bit of information with you. Sometimes Bible study and reading the Bible and understanding what we read is difficult for many of us, we don’t have theological trainings and many of us like me for instance, there’s no letters behind my name. I considered it a privilege to be able to do the footwork you might say for you folks going and finding information to help us better understand what the written word says, and I appreciate all the different websites and places that I visit that shares their knowledge with us. I do try to be very careful about the sources that I seek out and share with you each week. I have a new one this week that I would like to share with you. I’m going to give you the web address of it as follows. The website all in lower case www.easyenglish.bible . As I always do, I want to make you’e aware of the fact that I am relying heavily on the information that I have gotten from this particular website. The title of the article that I am gleaning information from today is The Teacher searches for the purpose of our lives. It was written by Hilda Bright and Kathy Pride.

A couple years ago, the pew did take a closer look at Ecclesiastes and I don’t remember the exact date, but I do remember that we did dive into it a bit to study and it is a fascinating book. I also published under the name of the pew A Blog called the back porch. I got a letter from a reader of the Back Porch last week, and I’d like to share part of that letter with you. He used the phrase “chasing the past”… the context being that we are always running to the doctor for every hurt or new episode of health matters Chasing the Past, looking for that feel good time yet every day we live is just one less we have to live. 

I think most of us are familiar with the saying and it’s put in many different ways that in actuality, we begin the process of dying as soon as we take our first breath. I don’t know about you, but I believe that I serve a God that believes in life a God of life a God that wants us to have a good and prosperous life. Everything in this life has a trade-off and I think we all realize that we only get out of something what we put into it. God has given us the tools to have a good life the problem being that many times we do not know nor do we use that which the Holy Spirit would lead us to do. Now I do not know why or how I was lead in this direction, but I immediately began to look back on that book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon  is given credit for having written the book of Ecclesiastes, the word meaning someone who gathers a group of people together,  like a teacher. Like many of the books that we encounter if we do our Bible study, there’s always some kind of confusion or dispute over who wrote it but in this case it’s most likely either Solomon himself, although Solomon’s name itself is not mentioned in the book it is obvious that the writer, whoever it may have been if not Solomon was simply teaching lessons from Solomon’s life. Actually, I suppose if you had a chip on her shoulder for any reason  this is probably a pretty good book for you to read. There are things in the message that we read here from this author that talks about the many things in this world that are not fair. Talks about people who are cruel to other people yet they suffer no punishment. It talks about people who work hard, but do not benefit from their efforts and good people suffer, but bad people receive rewards. Somehow or another my mind goes back to that letter that I received a few days ago sooner or later all of us will die.The Teacher, makes it very clear that good people and bad people they die, wise people and foolish people also will die. Sometimes one of the facts that we often forget, and passover is just simply that there will be a judgment each one of us will stand in judgment as an individual before the throne of God. The article that I am reading from and passing this information onto you the authors Hilda Bright and Kathy Pride state that it’s a very well possible that people have two main ideas about  the  writers attitude. The author’s attitude is either complete despair or hope maybe both hope and despair, their option is that the second idea is right. I tend to go along with that line of thought. One of the major study series I own is The New Interpreter’s Bible and the Book of Ecclesiastes is in the Wisdom Books section of the Bible. All of this may seem a bit disjointed in and I apologize for that. But I just couldn’t help but get that letter off my mind and go back and remember some of the things in the book of Ecclesiastes. This particular book encourages us to live wisely, and the only way we can truly live wisely is to have an active relationship with God. I suppose the best thing to do would be to close this in a manner reminding everyone don’t wait until you get old to find a relationship with God. God can make your life well worth living. He is a God of life, a God who loves us and to whom we belong. So I guess the real question is simply this are we truly chasing the past? Will what we do today buy us another tomorrow? The aches and pains and physical challenges we face each and every day as we get older are quite natural. The God who made us through his son Jesus Christ has given to us eternal life, we that believe and call upon Christ as our Lord and Savior, we would do well to learn from the past, but to keep our eyes on the future to look ahead and to always include God in everything we do.

Life is Good

jk