Day 1
'Whatever exists has already been named, and what humanity is has been known; no one can contend with someone who is stronger. The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?'
Ecclesiastes 6:10-12
Watch this segment of this week’s Going Deeper podcast episode before continuing today’s devotional.
The Teacher closes chapter 6 pointing out that no one can contend with the One who is stronger. Yet still, we keep coming back with more words, pleading for a different station in life or a shorter season than the one God has written, while our days slip past like a shadow. What part of your station in life are you still pleading with God to change?
Action: Go stand in the place where you feel your station in life most (your desk, the kitchen sink, the driver’s seat, a child’s doorway) and say out loud the one thing about it you’ve been trying to change. Then read Ecclesiastes 6:10 aloud right where you’re standing.
Day 2
'A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure. It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person than to listen to the song of fools. Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools. This too is meaningless.
Extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions. '
Ecclesiastes 7:1-10
Watch this segment of this week’s Going Deeper podcast episode before continuing today’s devotional.
The Teacher says the heart of fools – or the center of the fool’s attention – is in the house of pleasure. We all have places we go so we don’t have to think about the thing we don’t want to think about; the phone at every red light, the second drink, the radio turned up, a calendar too full for anyone to call it a problem, and the other aisle at the store when we see someone who is grieving. Where do you run to when reality gets heavy?
Action: Find one quiet space in your day (a parked car, a back porch, a corner chair before anyone else is up) and sit there for five minutes with nothing playing. Let whatever you’ve been avoiding come to the surface, and take it to heart.
Day 3
'Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and benefits those who see the sun. Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it.
Consider what God has done:
Who can straighten what he has made crooked? When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.
In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness.
Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise— why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool— why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other.
Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.
Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful than ten rulers in a city.
Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.
Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you— for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others. '
Ecclesiastes 7:11-22
Watch this segment of this week’s Going Deeper podcast episode before continuing today’s devotional.
When the Teacher watches the righteous perish young and the wicked live long, he warns us not to be over-righteous. The Teacher pictures someone using goodness as leverage, as if enough serving, praying, and showing up on Sunday could force God to straighten what He has made crooked. The Teacher points to a better way: the one who fears God will avoid all extremes. That kind of wisdom can hold both seasons in the same hand: when times are good, be happy, and when times are bad, consider that God has made the one as well as the other. In the season you’re in, are you trying to earn your way out, or are you willing to stop and consider what God may be doing in it?
Action: Set two alarms for midday and before bedtime. Label them “Consider.” When it goes off, stop and ask whether today has been a good day or a hard one, then do what Ecclesiastes 7:14 says — be happy, or consider that God made this day too.
Day 4
'for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.
All this I tested by wisdom and I said, “I am determined to be wise”— but this was beyond me. Whatever exists is far off and most profound— who can discover it? So I turned my mind to understand, to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly.
I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.
“Look,” says the Teacher, “this is what I have discovered:
“Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things— while I was still searching but not finding— I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.
This only have I found:
God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.”'
Ecclesiastes 7:23-29
Watch this segment of this week’s Going Deeper podcast episode before continuing today’s devotional.
The Teacher is determined to be wise and admits wisdom has stayed far off, yet he finds folly close at hand: a woman whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. Both wisdom and folly promise life (see Lady Wisdom vs. Lady Folly in Proverbs), yet only one delivers it, so the Teacher’s search ends in a confession about all of us — God made us upright, and we have gone in search of many schemes. Which of Folly’s schemes is calling loudest to you in this season you may have not chosen, and where have you mistaken her voice for Wisdom’s?
Challenge: Go back to the place you stood on Day 1 and read Romans 5:1-5 aloud there. Then name out the three things faith in Jesus gives you in that same station: peace with God, hope in a glorious future, and purpose in this difficult season!