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God has a special plan for your life.
Discouragement comes to us all. But as Christian people, dearly loved by The Lord – it will not have the final word, The Lord will bring you through, and put a song back your heart. And you will be stronger, wiser, more godly and ready for eternity because of this season.
Let your words be few. Let your words be true. Enjoy the good. Be balanced. And all of these things because you are a worshipper of God who is eternal, as you live wisely in this world which is not!
Accept the wonderful gifts that God has put here in the world for you. Enjoy them, and enjoy life to the full. But do not stop there – without God, these things are distorted, empty, meaningless and even harmful. But taken as signposts, they point you to an eternal, loving, glorious and good God.
The Bible is clear, we live one earthly life, then face the definitive judgement of God. We do not get endless lives in which we can correct the sins of previous lives, pay back what we owe, or move up the spiritual ladder until we reach perfection. Hebrews is blunt on this matter: “Man is appointed once to die, and after that the judgement”.
So today, if you are living for your family, your job, your career, your art or hobbies or ambitions. If your existence is centered upon anything within the world, then you are chasing after the wind. Jesus said, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” Ecclesiastes is the story of a man who did just that. He gained the whole world and found that his soul was hollow.
Depression also changed Kathleen’s faith. “I learned that real faith does not depend on my feelings” she says. There is a passage in the Bible which is especially significant to Kathleen now, which comes from Isiah 45:, “I will give you the treasures of darkness, And hidden riches of secret places”
If you worship money and things, then you will never feel you have enough…Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you … Worship power—you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others – David Foster Wallace
Now she says that one key verse in the Bible for her Is Nehemiah 8:10, which says, “This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength”. Because, as she describes in her lyrics, she has walked through the darkness of depression but stands strong today, in the joy of the Lord.
Because Jesus has died and risen from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father; in His name we can approach the throne of grace and press our concerns there. The gates of heaven are open, the Lord is waiting to hear from you.
The opening of chapter one might come as a bit of a surprise to you, if you have never read Ecclesiastes before. “Everything is Meaningless!” is quite a statement! People who only like to dip into the Bible’s texts and live off great verses like “I came to give you life in all its fullness” or “I can do all things through Christ” can find this statement bewildering to say the least. So let’s dig into it and see what the writer, Solomon, (writing as Qoheleth the teacher of wisdom), can possibly mean.