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Is life “meaningless, meaningless”?
The book of Ecclesiastes (and the Bible as a whole) paints the good life as one spent in the knowledge and service of our gracious God. It outlines an arc from the beginning to the end of history that gives purpose to the whole. But it also honours our ongoing experience of futility and frustration in the here and now.
The realism of the Christian faith will make us at once less hopeful about what human schemes and plans can achieve than some around us, and less fearful in face of the crises that come and go under the sun. And the big picture of our faith will make us far more hopeful about the future, ultimately – and therefore more able to act diligently, humbly, hopefully in the moment and season we find ourselves.
How is life complicated? In what ways is life simple?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you are the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is, and who was, and who is to come. You are the same yesterday, today, and forever, even as other things shift and give way. Be my hope and stay. Sustain my heart and direct the works of my hands and the words of my mouth, that I may please you in all that I do and say. Amen.
This reading plan has been adapted from parts of Dr. Natasha Moore's new book The Pleasures of Pessimism. Click here to check it out.
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About this Plan
The book of Ecclesiastes is not an easy part of the Bible – largely because it plumbs depths to our souls and experience that are not easy either. Strap in for an unflinching, possibly uncomfortable, but ultimately hopeful encounter with a very ancient and also very contemporary anguish about what it’s like to be human in God’s marvellous, broken world.
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We would like to thank Bible Society of Australia for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: http://biblesociety.org.au
