Cover of Knowing God
I listened to J. I. Packer‘s Knowing God tonight as I ran. The following excerpt reinforced the teaching on Ecclesiastes I’ve experienced these past few months, and how poignant His wisdom is for today.
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Packer, J. I. Knowing God. Inter Varsity Press, 1973. Pages 95-96
Chapter 10: God’s Wisdom and Ours
Section IV: Ecclesiastes (Boldface Print Is Mine)
…But once you conclude that there really is no rhyme or reason in things, what profit—value, gain, point, purpose—can you find henceforth in any sort of constructive endeavor? (1:3; 2:11, 22; 3:9; 5:16). If life is senseless, then it is valueless; and in that case, what use is it working to create things, to build a business, to make money, even to seek wisdom—for none of this can do you any obvious good (2:15 f., 22 f.: 5:11); it will only make you an object of envy (4:4); you can’t take any of it with you (2: 18ff.; 4:8; 5:15 f.); and what you leave behind will probably be mismanaged after you have gone (2:19). What point is there, then, in sweating and toiling at anything? Must not all man’s work be judged ‘vanity (emptiness, frustration) and a striving after wind’ (1:14 RV)? —activity that we cannot justify as being either significant in itself or worthwhile to us? It is to this pessimistic conclusion, says the preacher, that optimistic expectations of finding the divine purpose of everything will ultimately lead you (cf. 1:17f.). And of course he is right. For the world we live in is in fact the sort of place that he has described. The God who rules it hides Himself. Rarely does this world look as if a beneficent Providence were running it. Rarely does it appear that there is a rational power behind it all. Often what is worthless survives, while what is valuable perishes. Be realistic, says the preacher; face these facts; see life as it is. You will have no true wisdom till you do.
Signal Box at Bangor Railway Station, Wales. Image via Wikipedia
Many of us need this admonition. For not only are we caught up with the ‘York-signal-box’ conception, or misconception, of what wisdom is; we feel that, for the honour of God (and also, though we do not say this, for the sake of our own reputation as spiritual Christians), it is necessary for us to claim that we are, so to speak, already in the signal-box, here and now enjoying inside information as to the why and wherefore of God’s doings. This comforting pretense becomes part of us: we feel sure that God has enabled us to understand all His ways with us and our circle thus the reason for anything that may happen to us in the future. And then something very painful and quite inexplicable comes along, and our cheerful illusion of being in God’s secret councils is shattered. Our pride is wounded; we feel that God has slighted us; and unless at this pint we repent, and humble ourselves very thoroughly for our former presumption, and our whole subsequent spiritual life may be blighted.
…. But what, in that case, is wisdom? … Leave to God its [life's] issues; let Him measure its ultimate worth; your part is to use all the good sense and enterprise at your command in exploiting the opportunities that lie before you (11:1-6)…We can trust Him and rejoice in Him, even when we cannot discern His path…Such, then, is the wisdom with which God makes us wise.
