“All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.”
– Ecclesiastes 1:8
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you always hear everything that is said to you? Do you always do everything that you are asked to do? Do you always see everything that is in front of you? If you are like your grandpaa, you do not always hear everything that is said to you, you do not always do everything that you are asked to do and you do not always see everything that is in front of you. Even though your grandpaa can use the excuse that he is becoming more and more hearing challenged, your grandpaa often finds – because he starts to think about something else, that he has tuned out what the other person – like your grandmaa, is saying. Even though your grandpaa can use the excuse that God hardwired him with an administration gift, your grandpaa will invariably find – because a guy or gal who has an administration will assume that all the details are correct, that he has messed up on something – such as purchasing airline tickets. Even though your grandpaa can use the excuse that his second ‘Strength Finder’ strength is ideation, your grandpaa too often finds – because he gets bored quickly, that he wants to do in another way whatever is being done – even though he knows that how it is being done is an okay way to do it. When your grandpaa a couple of months ago was in Guatemala with an Adventures in Missions Ambassador short term ministry team of 10 high school kids, your grandpaa did the ziplines that go over a gorge that is located near Panajachel and a short distance from Lake Atitlan. The average length of the 8 zipline cables is about 1000 feet. The first zipline is about 600 feet above the gorge that all 8 of the ziplines cross over. Because your grandpaa does not like heights, your grandpaa had no desire to ever do a zipline but . . . because all the Ambassador short term ministry team kids wanted to do the ziplines, your grandpaa thought that he really needed to do the ziplines, too. Before starting the rather steep climb to the first zipline, each guy, gal and kid – after they had been fitted with a harness and a helmet, had to do a practice run on a short cable. Your grandpaa had to do the practice run a second time because he failed the practice run the first time that he did it. Your grandpaa had held himself up with his arms instead of allowing the set of short, strong straps that had been attached with carabiners to your grandpaa’s rigging and with carabiners to the thing that ran on the cables to keep him from falling to the ground. Your grandpaa – even after failing the first practice run, on the first 5 zipline runs still used his arms to hold his body up from falling. It was only after your grandpaa saw one of the gals reach up, grab only the set of straps and step off the platform into space, that it finally sunk into your grandpaa’s thick skull what had been said during the practice – trust in the straps.
If you do not read carefully, listen carefully and process carefully to what the ‘teacher’ – who was Solomon, wrote in Ecclesiastes 1, you would think that the ‘teacher’ really wants his readers, hearers and students to believe that there is no reason for living. The ‘teacher’ uses the word meaningless to describe his feelings about everything. The ‘teacher’ questions why a guy would ever want to toil or work. The ‘teacher’ has concluded that whatever it is that a guy accomplishes. that whatever he has accomplished will never have a lasting value to the guy. The only thing to the ‘teacher’ that remains static is planet Earth – while generations and generations of guys, gals and kids simply show up and then disappear. The ‘teacher’ saw order in the sun by how and where it rises and sets each day, how the wind will always return to its course and how all the streams return water to the sea. The ‘teacher’ saw life as being repetitive – with nothing new ever having the chance to occur. The ‘teacher’ states that he had devoted himself – using the wisdom that he had been blessed with, to study, to explore and to learn everything that he could about what was taking place on planet Earth. Even though the ‘teacher’ claims that his wisdom bank had been really increased through all his studying, exploring and learning – more than what king was able to do while the king ruled over the city of Jerusalem before him, the ‘teacher’ felt like he was chasing the wind – which he concluded that he would never be able to catch. After having tried to apply what he had learned, experienced and understood from wisdom and knowledge, the ‘teacher’ concludes that having wisdom was leading him to sorrow and accumulating knowledge was only bringing him grief.
If your grandpaa did not have footnotes that help to explain what the ‘teacher’ is trying to say in his manifest or missive about his observations on living, your grandpaa would have missed what is hidden in verse 8, “All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.” What your grandpaa understands regarding the context of what the ‘teacher’ has written about involves the perception of life in a relationship that a guy, gal or kid has or does not have with God. Your grandpaa hears the ‘teacher’ saying in his manifest or missive that a guy, gal or kid who does not have a trust relationship with God cannot help but end up concluding that meaningless, useless, empty, hollow, futile, vain, etc. describe what his or her life has been on planet Earth. Per the ‘teacher’, a guy, gal or kid who does have a trust relationship with God – as God the Father, has the strap of God – as God the Son, and God – as God the Spirit, keeping him or her always safely attached to Him.
Ecclesiastes 1 (1015)