-Ecclesiastes 2:24-26
“There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him? For to a person who is good in His sight He has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the sinner He has given the task of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who is good in God’s sight. This too is vanity and striving after wind.”
-We can spend our lives manipulating circumstances to get what we think we deserve or have been denied. Or we can receive the life He wants to surprise us with as a gift from His hand.
-The ability to enjoy anything has very little relationship to the thing itself. (24-25)
-Nothing inside of me can enable me to keep enjoying the things I do or the things I have. (24-25)
-Only God has the power to make an event enjoyable. (24-25)
-The moment you invite Jesus into His own event and make it an occasion to enjoy Him, that event suddenly has a chance to be stunningly supernatural.
-Contentment is the conviction that everything I need for a great life is already resident within me (24-25)
-*I don’t confuse wants with needs
*I don’t pursue preferences with the same passion as His purposes
*I don’t pursue pleasure nearly as much as I enjoy His intimacy
*I don’t daydream what could be as much as staying present in what is
*I don’t dwell on what I deserve, but on the love I don’t deserve
*I don’t interpret less as an indication of His displeasure or more
as an indication of His pleasure
-1) If you pursue the mint on the bed it may not taste as good as you hoped.
2) If you trust God with you, you will at some time find yourself in a place where you get a mint on your bed, and it will taste really, really good. And you’ll receive the added delight of knowing its goodness came not from the mint but from the very hand of God.
3) If you choose to delight in Him, those times without the mint on the bed will often be the ones you’ll remember and cherish the rest of your life.
-Joy and wisdom are given as gifts to the humble. It is why information is plentiful but wisdom and joy are not (26)
-God rewards the trustingly self-forgetful with the very delights they choose to not strive for (26)
-When we give up striving and trust Him to supply whatever we need for a wonderful life, we are freed to love and be loved. (26)
-To live for the success of those you are given to love
To live for sweet, playful intimacy with Jesus
To live for worship in sincerity and childlike awe
To live for unhurried, fragile vulnerability with friends
To shamelessly revel in each moment as His perfect will
To live for the redemption of those who don’t yet know God
To live for the protection of those who cannot defend themselves
