Ecclesiastes 11

Ecclesiastes 11New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Send out your bread upon the waters,
    for after many days you will get it back.
Divide your means seven ways, or even eight,
    for you do not know what disaster may happen on earth.
When clouds are full,
    they empty rain on the earth;
whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
    in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
Whoever observes the wind will not sow;
    and whoever regards the clouds will not reap.

Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything.

In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hands be idle; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.

Even those who live many years should rejoice in them all; yet let them remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Banish anxiety from your mind, and put away pain from your body; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

Or you could say: youth and the dawn of life are meaningless.

Are vapor.

They are here. Present.

And then they are not.

And you could look at that as terrifying, or, as the teacher chides the reader, you could let anxiety about that be banished from your mind.

It simply is.

And that's not meant to be terrifying.

If anything, it perhaps is liberating.

As Michael Gungor, podcaster and an co-founder of the band Gungor, as well as Bloom Church in Colorado, says: God makes meaning out of meaninglessness.

All of that that fades away: youth, pleasure, pain, age, joy is meaningless until God takes a hold of it and drives meaning right through the heart of it.

God takes pain and brings growth.

God takes suffering and creates humility.

God takes both youth and age and brings about wisdom.

What today are you fearful of losing?

What today seems meaningless to you?

A vanity? Vapor.

Look again and see what meaning God is giving it!

God of mystery and meaning, open my heart and eyes to what is before me so that as it slips away, I am ready to grasp on and go where you lead me next! Amen