Author: admin

One of the greatest frustrations of being wise is that you have to spend so much of your time around fools! How frustrating to know the truth and yet to have your life largely impacted by people who believe a lie! Democratic societies are often driven by its lowest common denominator. The majority rules! Unfortunately, the majority of society is unwise!

It can be difficult to have wisdom and yet not become a cynic. When you watch people continually making the same foolish mistakes, you can easily develop a harsh, critical spirit. This helps no one. But it is a burden to be borne. For you will watch your children, or your church, or your nation continually making harmful decisions when you know full well that a better choice was available to them.

The key for the wise is to guard their hearts and to teach others. Help people understand God’s wisdom. Demonstrate the better way. And resign yourself to the harsh reality that you do not live in a society of the wise.

One would think that, after centuries of disappointed workaholics, a light would come on! But it does not. The office buildings continue to be filled with people grasping for the wind. They work hard and long, often sacrificing what truly matters, only to eventually face crushing disappointment.

There certainly are benefits to hard work. You can advance in your company, sell more products, earn more money, and climb the corporate ladder. Make no mistake;hard work gets results. The key is what you work hard for.

The land is littered with people who worked enormous amounts of overtime only to be laid off work during a downsizing. Some people spend countless hours building their own company, only to eventually file for bankruptcy. Others work their way to the C Suite only to be forced out by the next CEO. Life can be filled with frustration and disappointment.

That’s why it is crucial that we invest our life in what matters and what cannot be taken away or lost. Those who invest their lives in temporal pursuits will forever be disappointed when they discover it does not last! What part of “temporal” do you not understand?!

We live in an age of rapid change. Cutting edge technology is constantly being replaced by even more edgy inventions. Information is multiplying at a dizzying rate. Computers and search engines are enabling research and discovery to occur at breakneck speed. For even the most technologically savvy person, however, keeping up with change is becoming increasingly problematic. With such advances, it seems overstated and quite dated for the sage’s comment that there is nothing new under the sun. After all, every week someone is announcing an exciting, new development.

However, wise people ultimately look at people, not the latest smart phone, to understand their times. And people haven’t changed through the millennia. They still tend to be selfish and self centered. They often succumb to greed. Truth is often viewed as flexible. People expendable. Regardless of the age in which we live, people continue to behave in similar fashion.

Wise people are not caught by surprise when people act like people! When corruption is exposed or leaders fall morally, it reveals a pattern, not an abnormality. Study the past. It continues to be the best predictor of future behavior.

Society lauds those who are the best. It constantly heralds “Top Ten” lists. Everyone is ranked and compared to others. The higher up the list you are rated, the better you feel about yourself.

The writer of Ecclesiastes had excelled everyone. No one had accomplished more or accumulated as much. As he walked down the streets of Jerusalem, every person who saw him acknowledged that he had surpassed them all. Yet at the end of the day, he found this to be unsatisfactory. What did it really matter? Comparing ourselves to others ultimately leaves us empty. Being the best among our peers may win us acclaim for a moment, but that satisfaction quickly dissipates.

It is when we live our life in relation to Christ that the depths of our soul are finally satisfied. Though we will never equal or surpass Him in greatness, it does not matter. We are creatures and it is only as we lovingly relate to our Creator that we find true satisfaction in life. Merely surpassing our fellow creatures is transitory and meaningless. But achieving the pleasure of God on our lives; that is priceless.

Leaders tend to want to leave their mark. One way they attempt this is by building something impressive. You might enlarge the organization you lead. Perhaps you double the staff size, or floor space, or assets or sales. There is something within leaders that makes them want to leave a place better and greater than how they found it. But there is a trap inherent in this.

While good leaders do make things better, that cannot become their source of satisfaction and fulfillment in life. No building or organization, regardless of how great, lasts forever. Everything comes to an end. People move on. What you poured your heart and soul into will one day be led by another.

One of the problems was that the writer of Ecclesiastes believed the great works were his. He had done them and he rightly received the credit. Such labor is truly unsatisfactory. Others will eventually accomplish more. Successors may even undo what we accomplished.

The key is to invest yourself in God’s great work. That lasts forever! Bringing glory to God through our labor is immensely satisfying. To point our lives and labor toward God and to acknowledge His greatness allows us to fulfill our life’s purpose. It is inherently hollow to spend our lives trying to accomplish something great for ourselves. Live your life by doing great things for God!

Laughter is one of the most frivolous, non-productive, and at times silly things we do. Yet it often sets great leaders apart from mediocre ones. That is because as non-productive as it may seem, laughter is essential to our emotional and spiritual and even professional health.

Laughter is to our soul what vitamins are to our body. Going without either for very long leads to a breakdown. Laughter reveals we are maintaining a healthy view of life. It means we have not lost hope that God can still work in our situation. It also indicates we are not taking ourselves, or our problems too seriously. Typically we laugh with others, and that ensures we are not becoming isolated in our misery or troubles. Laughter that goes right to our soul is refreshing. It lifts our spirit and energizes our soul.

It is a fallacy to assume that truly “spiritual” people are always somber. It is likewise wrong to think that if you laugh, you must not be taking your work seriously enough. Some of the greatest leaders in history were people who loved to laugh. An absence of laughter in your life may indicate you have developed a badly skewed view of life and your problems. When you truly understand that Jesus Christ never leaves you or forsakes you, how can you not laugh wholeheartedly each day of your life?

Many people have falsely concluded that the purpose of life is to have as much fun as possible. Such individuals fervently spend their time and money on it pursuit. The media bombards us with advertisements alerting us to ever increasing methods of enhancing our pleasure. There seems no end to the ways people can entertain themselves.

Yet this driving force of the pursuit of happiness has exerted dire consequences. People are abandoning their marriages, and their families, in their quest for pleasure. Such a mindset encourages a rabid self-centeredness that justifies any amount of pain inflicted upon others in an effort to increase our own happiness. This attitude justifies any behavior, no matter how outlandish or foolish, if it makes us happy.

The writer of Ecclesiastes soon realized that living a life pursuing pleasure is vanity. It leads to nothing but regret. Looking back over a life invested in the pursuit of pleasure is a hollow and unsatisfying experience. It is living life at its most shallow level. It is selfishness at the extreme. Such living makes no solid contribution to humanity. The death of such people leaves no one with regret or loss. Though the pursuit of pleasure can appear infinitely appealing, it inevitably leads to loss and disappointment. The wise person soon recognizes this truth.

The saying, “ignorance is bliss” has solid justification. For those who know little, there is little to upset them. If you are unaware of your life’s possibilities, you will not feel discouraged when you fall short of them. If you do not know the promises of God, you will not be dissatisfied when you fail to experience them. If you are unaware of the heights people are capable of achieving, you will not struggle being mediocre.

However, wisdom and knowledge change us. They make us aware of what could be. They also enable us to see the harsh truth of our reality. When Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, it was because He knew the truth of what its citizens were missing and the reality of the sure judgment that was coming. Those living in ignorance of those facts blithely continued on with their lives, blissfully unaware of their dire circumstances. But Jesus knew.

It can be a burden to have wisdom and knowledge. To whom much has been given, much is expected. Once you know what God intends, it is difficult to be satisfied with anything less. Are you carrying the burden of wisdom? Don’t grow discouraged. The weight of ignorance is ultimately greater still.

Have you ever attempted to help someone make positive changes in their life, only to have your efforts be in vain? Have you watched people with character flaws who struggled with them their entire life? Have you ever tried to change one of your unhealthy habits, only to find it far more difficult that you had imagined?

The writer of Ecclesiastes was writing about his search for meaning and truth. He had observed people and came to some harsh conclusions. Perhaps his most biting conclusion was that: people don’t change. If you are crooked, you cannot be made straight. If you struggle with integrity, you will always be vulnerable to being unreliable. If you have a hot temper, you will always have anger issues.

Anyone who has ever worked with people knows what this cynicism is based on! People can seem to change for a while, but inevitably they return to their previous, sinful behavior. Yet Ecclesiastes was also written long before the coming of Christ. He was unaware of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The concept of Christ living out His life in us was foreign to him (Gal. 2:20). It is true, that on our own, it is extremely difficult to change. Our human condition is enslaved to who we are. Praise God Christ intervened into our human condition and offers each person hope for positive change in their life!

Despite the grandiose claims of marketers, it would seem that there is truly nothing genuinely new under the sun. Of course, there are new apps to download on our cell phones, or new models of cars being loudly advertised in magazines. Yet when it comes to people and how we relate to others, it would appear that the same kind of thing happens repeatedly.

One of the reasons that the study of history is so important is because it reveals the way people have related to one another over time. Tragically, it seems, we have not learned from our previous mistakes! Humanity continues to make the same mistakes year after year.

Part of our problem is that we continue to be easily seduced by claims that appeal to our temporal lusts and desires. People keep promising us worldly happiness and we continue to succumb to its carnal appeal. We continue to place our hope in people and we are repeatedly disappointed. Regardless of how many times people fail and disappoint us, we continue to learn nothing from the past.

Wise people learn from the past. They are not gullible to the same worldly appeals. They watch the folly of people and they take note. The wise are rarely taken by surprise.