"Unpredictable Life?"

"I have seen something else under the sun; the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned, but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come." Eccl 9:11-12 NIV
"No man can predict misfortune." Eccl 9:12 MSG

Those words contain a lot of truth because all of us have experienced those times when we did everything right and the result just didn't quite work out the way we had expected. Sometimes "swift" isn't enough to win the race, nor "learned" good enough to gain expected favor. How do we explain that?

You may have your own way of interpreting misfortune but in my experience, most of it has been the result of my own lack of knowledge, skill, commitment etc. Its easy to convince ourselves that "I did/am doing my best" but if we're truly honest we might admit that is rarely the case. We can virtually always do it better if we are willing to invest time and energy in learning how to do so.

I think Solomon maybe should have said, "SOMETIMES the race is not to the swift" etc, because when taken on balance, more often than not, the swift, the strong, the wise, etc. come out on top. However, I also think the wise man was unwise to leave God out of his equation. He is right that "No man can predict misfortune" but there's another force at work in the lives of those who are called of God, a force much greater than any misfortune.

Paul said, "We KNOW that in all things God works for the good of those that love him - if God is for us who can be against us?!" Romans 8:28,31

I guess Paul's experience of a life of ups and downs was very different from his ancient ancestor. He always knew God would bring him through whatever misfortune came his way. And God did!

I'm standing with Paul on this. Although everything in my life hasn't always met my expectations and I have seen much that Solomon saw, God has always been at work to make it all produce something "good" for me and multitudes of others who can share the same testimony as Paul. If I am honestly open to learning what God wants to teach me, he will always bring me out on top! He has and he will regardless of any misfortune and I think that is just a huge HALLELUJAH!

GOD'S LOVE AND THE BROKEN HEART

One of the scariest things God has told me in His word is this, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9 This was the prophet's assessment of the society he was commissioned by God to speak to for Him, but its no less true today of every human heart. Jesus said it isn't what you eat that defiles your spirit but what comes out of your mouth. It originates in your heart. The Bible is peppered throughout with similar statements about my heart. In the Bible, the word "heart" rarely refers to the blood pump in our chest, it refers to the seat of emotions, the place where we weigh information, debate alternatives and make decisions. It is the place where love is born and grows. It is also the birthplace of anger, greed, lust, hate, jealousy and that whole dark-side family.
David knew both sides of his heart very well. He seems to have had a difficult time with forgiveness and leaned more toward revenge and retribution, even with his own offspring. He grieved over the death of Absalom, after the fact, but doesn't seem to have made any effort to communicate a father's love to him. I always have to be very careful to not judge David by my own standard of morality because God has forever put him in the company of the faithful at Hebrews 11:32. That indicates to me that I don't have all the information God has. If God has forgiven and blessed David, I have no right to condemn him. He only affirms the truth of Jeremiah's statement about the human heart.
David's humble song of repentance is my prayer too. Near the end of it he wrote, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17 Getting there took nearly a year for David. He lived all those days with his back to God, going his own way, listening to the dark side of his heart. This was new territory for David, a place of separation from the God he had loved and praised all his life. I seriously doubt he wrote any songs of praise to God during that time. God waited patiently for David to reach the point of honest repentance on his own. It didn't happen. So, out his great love for David, God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him directly, VERY directly. Finally his heart was broken and he turned back to face God in the transparent way God honors.
Yesterday we saw that God chose David because he was a man "after God's own heart". Sin didn't change that because God always knew David's heart and how he would respond to His grace. But He had to get David to the point of absolute, honest repentance or his sin would multiply in his heart and he would be in danger of living out the rest of his life from that dark side.
What a Father our God is. His grace is always greater than our sin, all of it. He will never quit working to get us to that same transparency before Him because He loves us in spite of what we do. That love is the only power that can free us from the control of the enemy who works tirelessly to drag us away from our Father's house. A broken and contrite heart may not be an easy road sometimes but it is the only way to hear joy again and sing HALLELUJAH!