There are moments in a person’s life when hopelessness comes like the fading sunlight on a cold winter’s day.”
–Kenneth S. Pratt (Dragon’s Fire)
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
–John 10:10 (NKJV)
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There is so much to write about life. I have spent much time in my Echoes regarding life, the journey of life, and the legacy of life. What is life? Is it something to be gone through with drudgery–here today gone tomorrow? We should not spend our life in apathy or cynicism. I remember one quotation by my childhood pastor, G.R. Kelly, “Life is to be lived.”
Thoreau said that, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” This may be truer than it seems in the light of the world’s condition. People who fear live in desperation. They are afraid to live their lives. Carl Sandbug was more of a cynic, he said, “Life is an onion–you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
Let me say again, “Life is for living!” Do not become the man of whom H.L. Menchem speaks about, “The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not that it is predominately painful, but that it is lacking in any sense.” These three, and their thoughts–Thoreau, Sandburg, Menchem–I pity folks like them. Woe, to me, everybody is against me, or I’m so bored. How can someone be bored with life? God gave us life and He wants us to have and live it abundantly. Paul writes, “Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.” (Romans 5:3, Amplified)
What hope is there? Solomon said, “‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher; ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NKJV) What a mournful, dreadful view of life. Why did he say this? When a man seeks the things of this world he is never satisfied. He wants more, then comes to the end of his life realizing that all is vanity. What a terrible waste of life. “Vanity alludes us to the uselessness and emptiness of life which is not lived in fellowship with God, and in accord with the divine will,” said one wise individual. May lives with the illusion of gaining but finds it is all hopeless. All is hopeless without Christ. Life apart from Jesus Christ has no meaning and cannot produce true happiness and certainly not the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit.
Man searches in all the wrong places. Some of the saddest things of human life are the errors which divert men from their true aim, and plunge them into various and growing misery. Seek Him while He is to be found–that is the place that needs to be searched. Seek the Lord, look to Him, and He will satisfy the soul. Verse 3 says, “What profit has man left from all his toil at which he toils under the sun? [Is life worth living?]” (1:3, Amplified)
I would answer Solomon: Yes! It is worth living but only when we recognize Christ. The words of G. Campbell Morgan come to my mind, “This man has been living through all these experiences [read Ecclesiastes] under the sun, concerning with nothing above the sun…until there came a moment in which he had seen the whole of life. And there was something over the sun. It is only as a man takes account of that which is over the sun as well as that which is under the sun that things under the sun are seen in their true light.”
If you are bored with life try Jesus. If there is sorrow, suffering, and pain, go to Jesus, He will be there with you through it. If you are searching, find Jesus. What a man does in this life in regard to eternity is what really counts. What a man does with the person of Jesus Christ makes life either worth living or vanity (hopeless).
———————————-
There is so much to write about life. I have spent much time in my Echoes regarding life, the journey of life, and the legacy of life. What is life? Is it something to be gone through with drudgery–here today gone tomorrow? We should not spend our life in apathy or cynicism. I remember one quotation by my childhood pastor, G.R. Kelly, “Life is to be lived.”
Thoreau said that, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” This may be truer than it seems in the light of the world’s condition. People who fear live in desperation. They are afraid to live their lives. Carl Sandbug was more of a cynic, he said, “Life is an onion–you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
Let me say again, “Life is for living!” Do not become the man of whom H.L. Menchem speaks about, “The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not that it is predominately painful, but that it is lacking in any sense.” These three, and their thoughts–Thoreau, Sandburg, Menchem–I pity folks like them. Woe, to me, everybody is against me, or I’m so bored. How can someone be bored with life? God gave us life and He wants us to have and live it abundantly. Paul writes, “Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.” (Romans 5:3, Amplified)
What hope is there? Solomon said, “‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher; ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NKJV) What a mournful, dreadful view of life. Why did he say this? When a man seeks the things of this world he is never satisfied. He wants more, then comes to the end of his life realizing that all is vanity. What a terrible waste of life. “Vanity alludes us to the uselessness and emptiness of life which is not lived in fellowship with God, and in accord with the divine will,” said one wise individual. May lives with the illusion of gaining but finds it is all hopeless. All is hopeless without Christ. Life apart from Jesus Christ has no meaning and cannot produce true happiness and certainly not the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit.
Man searches in all the wrong places. Some of the saddest things of human life are the errors which divert men from their true aim, and plunge them into various and growing misery. Seek Him while He is to be found–that is the place that needs to be searched. Seek the Lord, look to Him, and He will satisfy the soul. Verse 3 says, “What profit has man left from all his toil at which he toils under the sun? [Is life worth living?]” (1:3, Amplified)
I would answer Solomon: Yes! It is worth living but only when we recognize Christ. The words of G. Campbell Morgan come to my mind, “This man has been living through all these experiences [read Ecclesiastes] under the sun, concerning with nothing above the sun…until there came a moment in which he had seen the whole of life. And there was something over the sun. It is only as a man takes account of that which is over the sun as well as that which is under the sun that things under the sun are seen in their true light.”
If you are bored with life try Jesus. If there is sorrow, suffering, and pain, go to Jesus, He will be there with you through it. If you are searching, find Jesus. What a man does in this life in regard to eternity is what really counts. What a man does with the person of Jesus Christ makes life either worth living or vanity (hopeless).