Today’s Scripture: Ecclesiastes 7:11-14
Before we get started today, let me again encourage you to flip open your Bibles and read the complete passage of the day. We won’t be able to go in-depth with each verse, but each verse of God’s Word can be profitable to us.
OK, Maybe a slight stretch for the Happy Days Picture because were not really talking about "Happy Days" But being Joyful in the days of prosperity. However as I was getting ready for this post, I grabbed my NASB which uses the term happy in the days of prosperity. So let’s take a look now at Ecclesiastes 7:14:
14 In the day of prosperity be joyful,
But in the day of adversity consider:
Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other,
So that man can find out nothing that will come after him
Or as we find in the New American Standard Bible (Happy Days):
14 In the day of prosperity be happy,
But in the day of adversity consider--
God has made the one as well as the other
So that man will not discover anything that will be after him.
We see here a couple teachings we don’t often talk about. First that it’s ok to be happy about our prosperity. We don’t have to go around feeling bad when things are good for us. We may think that’s crazy but its true, find someone in Christian circles who had blessed financially, and they will shrug it off, with comments like "Its never enough" or "I wish I could do more". Pause and think about it, how many "Happy" wealthy people have you met. There may be a lot of them out there, but I only know a few. Yet we see here, the "preacher" (Solomon not me) teaches us to be happy in our prosperity.
The second teaching we find, is probably more useful to people like me; that when trouble comes, remember, God has allowed that for us as well. We often like to blame these things on others, get angry, wonder why God isn’t blessing us. But just as sometimes God gives us prosperity, sometimes he will allows adversity to come into our lives. He does this so we will rely on Him, we will understand we need Him; we will not take Him for granted.
This second teaching is sometimes foreign to us, especially if you like to watch a certain smiley preacher on TV. But when you take to word of God as a whole, you realize that things won’t always be all "happy" and we won’t always have prosperity, sometimes we will face adversity, and it is important that we remain joyful even in those times for God in His perfect nature has allowed us to have both types of days. This thought reminds me of James 1:2 "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials". Do we remain joyful in trials, do we trust in God’s will in the midst of adversity? Or do we sit around and pout and wait for the blessings to start flowing again.
As we close out these thoughts for today let me leave you with these thoughts from A.W. Tozer *"Now I submit that the whole hectic scramble after happiness is an evil as certainly as is the scramble after money or fame or success. How far wrong all this is will be discovered easily by the simple act of reading the New Testament through once with meditation. There the emphasis is not upon happiness - but upon holiness. God is more concerned with the state of people's hearts than with the state of their feelings. Undoubtedly the will of God brings final happiness to those who obey, but the most important matter is not how happy we are - but how holy."
Action Step:
1. Has God blessed you financially or in other ways, thank him and rejoice in that.
2. Has adversity come your way, praise the Lord, and find joy in that.
* A. W. Tozer's Of God And Men, "Holiness Before Happiness", Christian Publications, 1960, pp 43-46
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Posted by: Nike Shox Rivalry | September 23, 2010 at 11:52 PM