Giggling at the Precipice

 

It happens every time. 

I have expectations.

I have dreams and wishes. 

I make PLANS.

And nothing, NOTHING, ever turns out like I think it will.

That doesn't mean it's worse. In fact, it's often better, but still....it's not what I PLANNED.

I should know this by now. 

There's a book about it in the Bible, one that I just finished teaching. 

Remember Ecclesiastes? Bet I know what you remember about it.

"Meaningless, meaningless. Everything is meaningless", right?

Of course, this is a mistranslation, one of many in the Bible, but this one is kind of important. The Hebrew word here is hevel, which doesn't mean meaningless but means a smoke or vapor, something that's there one minute and gone the next, that shifts and moves without warning, then vanishes entirely, something without substance. 

Yup, that's it all right. My plans are all hevel. Seemingly real, but not solid. And they're supposed to be that way. And we don't like it. In fact, the early Jews thought about kicking Ecclesiastes out of the Bible entirely because it was so pessimisstic and confusing.

Ecclesiastes teaches me that I'm an insignificant speck in the universe, that universe is completely random, and oh yes, the big one...we are all going to die.

Lovely. Just what I wanted to hear on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon.

You can't control your life, it teaches, so stop trying. Learn to hold things with an open hand because you really only have control over one thing and that's your attitude towards the present moment. Stop worrying, it says, and choose to enjoy a good conversation with a friend or the sun on your face or a good meal with people that you care about. The simple things in life, yes, and both the good things and the bad because both are rich gifts from God. We are not copping out in this. We’re just admitting what we have to work with.

You know, that doesn't sound so bad, but what if we want life to be predictable? Tough luck, Ecclesiastes says. It isn't. And there's a reason for this.

Earlier in Proverbs, we're told that living by wisdom and the fear of the Lord have real advantages. On the whole life will probably go better for you. See but the problem is that even living by wisdom and the fear of the Lord, they're hevel too because they don't guarantee a good life. Good people die tragically and horrible people live long and prosper. There are just too many exceptions and so even wisdom is hevel, again not meaningless but an enigma. Wisdom doesn't work the way you think it should. So what's the way forward in the midst of all this hevel? Here paradoxically the teacher Ecclesiastes discovers the key to the true enjoyment of life under the sun. It's accepting hevel. It's acknowledging that everything in your life is totally out of your control. It's Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill and laughing. It's us hanging onto the rock ledge and giggling at the absurdity of it all because it doesn't matter whether we let go or not.

Even my expectations about what life ought to be are ultimately hevel, hevel. I can only hear myself. I can’t think like God. Everything under the sun is utterly hevel. But when I come to adopt a posture of total trust in God, it frees me to simply enjoy my life as I actually experience it not as I think it ought to be.

So letting go or not letting go, life will be what it is. Chaotic, unpredictable, and blessed by a God who is the only one in the mix who actually knows what He is doing. Trying to be OK with that. 

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