“A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
-Ecclesiastes 3:4
The turning of the tide of Ecclesiastical nihilism begins here. The recordings of the times include things both happy and sad, things that might fill a man’s heart with sorrow.
A time to die..
A time to mourn..
Even the happy moments evoke in me a sense of nostalgic heartache, for happiness I can recall but have long since stopped feeling.
And then he continues with something beautiful:
“He has made all things good in their time, and he has handed over the world to their disputes, so that man may not discover the work which God made from the beginning, even until the end.”
- Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made all things good in their own time. If that isn’t encouraging, I don’t know what is. Even the heartache of loss, or the knowledge of approaching end, they cannot ruin you if you know that they are good in their time.
And then Solomon speaks of rejoicing and doing well in life, and enjoying the reward of your labor.
He moves on from this to discuss the perpetual nature of God’s creation. What harm can we do to it? What can we add or remove? To some you might see a sense of nihilism, but from this, I see freedom. After all, If the world will go on to forget me when I am gone, why should I worry about the future? About my own remembrance? Surely the world will forget my shame as soon as I am gone, and my rewards will not follow me to the grave.
So enjoy them in their time. Take in the beauty, the joy of life, for it will soon end. And worry little about the sayings of those around you that drive you on to work and work and work with little reward.
Solomon turns now to the nature of man, and the injustices that are from us. And he offers a warning, that God will judge us for our wrongdoings. That we will be shown to have nothing more on earth than the beasts have in life.
We are all going to live, and we are all going to die. We will all be returned to the ground, crumbled away to our very base components. There isn’t much point but to do your work, happily. You don’t know what will happen after you, but you know all the good that is happening today. Enjoy it. Embrace it. Before it runs out.
Modern Survival Arkansas 