By the Will of God

DEVOTION

ECCLESIASTES

BY THE WILL OF GOD

Eccl 9:11-12

11 I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. 12 Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

NIV

Again, such a sad situation to be in. It just seems like life is just a meaningless useless thing and why bother going on. Life is just one of chance. We haven’t a single say as to what it holds for us. Life might bring us whatever and we just get whatever it brings. It doesn’t matter if we are swift or slow, strong or weak, wise or stupid, wealthy or poor. It does not matter if we are brilliant or have many degrees of higher learning. It is just a matter of time and chance that happens to us all. Wow, that is so depressing. How did Solomon ever get up in the morning? How did he make it through the day? Of course he was born into royalty. He was born into wealth. Once he ascended to the throne of his father, he had people from all over the world bringing him more wealth, presents of great value and he married hundreds of women to solidify treaties with other lands. Was that all by chance? It does not seem so, he made his way, changed his life when he asked God for a discerning heart so he could govern the people with justice and wisdom. God caused him to be wise and wealthy beyond measure. But, again it appears he is speaking from the view of the common people, those who do not have the relationship with God as he did. Still he does speak of the life of every person in that sense as well. We do not know when our hour will come. Life is somewhat of a chance unless, we give it over to the Lord. We can change the course of our life. We have changed it. Had we not accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior we are convinced we would have died years ago. Our life have changed dramatically since accepting Jesus. Do we still sin? Sure, but we do not live in sin, in a life dedicated to sin, captive to it. We have been set free from that kind of life and thus that kind of death. Do evil times still fall upon us? It can be said that just because we are a believer, it does not mean we cannot have difficulty in life. There are believers in other parts of the world who are being murdered by the hundreds. Some have been killed in hideous ways. Evil has had its day with them. There are people in this country who believe, yet they are homeless, taking refuge in a shelter, or depend on charity for their food. Maybe in some sense life is just a chance. We did not have a choice as to what family setting we were born into. We were not able to pick our parents or siblings. Some were born with less of an advantage then others. Some were born with what some would call a handicap. What choice did we have? It seems the only real choice we have in life is to live with or without God. Yet there is this truth that God knit us together in our mother’s womb, so we could say that he determined our life before we were born. He knows all of our days before they started. He knew who we would be and how we would live, and where we would be. Does that qualify as chance? Does that qualify as predestination? It does qualify as the foreknowledge of God, but not of either those other two. Chance implies we spin the wheel and see where it stops. Predestination implies we have no say at all in our life or where the wheel stops. However, we do have a choice as whether we accept or reject Jesus as Our Lord and Savior, even if some think that we are predestined to make that choice, it is still not by chance, but by the will of God. So then our life is not set in stone. We can live in evil or in Christ, it is a choice not a chance. Our life is in some sense a partnership with God, our will and his will. We surrender ours to his, so our life is governed by the will of God.