"Which of these three beings is thinking, 'Yum. These oats are going to taste great next fall?'" Image via Wikipedia

We are NOT like the animals. Please don’t clump me with worms, dolphins, cats, monkeys, aphids, and even dogs! While watching a documentary on dolphin slaughter in Japan (23,000/year in one bay!), (http://www.savejapandolphins.org/), people equated dolphins with humans almost 20 times! Yes, we overlap in some behaviors, but please don’t equate animals and humans. Here’s why…

In Ecclesiastes 3, verses 18-21 Solomon says that, yes, we are like the animals because they live and die and so do we. They breathe. We breathe. We have similar functions, and then we die. In verse 19, he states that this is HEBEL, a misty, transient, temporary, and “crappy” condition of our life on earth. We are both doomed to die. We have no choice in the matter at all!

21 Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

Some people have taken this verse out of context to say that humans and animals both have “spirits”. They make this verse say too much. Solomon simply states the obvious: When a person or animal dies, we don’t see a “ghosty” cloud leaving the body going up or down. You can believe what you want about dogs or animals in heaven, but that is not what is being said here. We humans cannot see beyond this life. We cannot see spiritual things with our eyes. What can we see?

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

Solomon sees a powerful, life-giving force at work when someone enjoys working (producing results). Animals don’t work and find meaning. An oxen plowing a field has no greater satisfaction at the end of the day. A dog doesn’t lick itself, and say, “I love the feeling of being clean!” A horse doesn’t think when plowing and say, “Yum! These oats are going to taste great next fall!” They don’t find satisfaction in labor like humans do! Only humans are given that “lot in life.” That is our place! Enjoyment is what distinguishes humans from animals.

Humans CAN act like animals! Humans CAN act animal-ish, ruled by impulse, desires, and basal bodily functions. Humans CAN ignore the ultimate questions of why we do what we do, what happens after life, why are we here, how do we find real pleasure, how do we know God exists. The brilliance of Solomon’s wisdom is in asking the question in verse 22, “Who can bring him to see what will happen after him?” He begs the greatest question, “Where is God in this world?”

God is within this world, a good God, a God that wants our happiness in an unjust world, who can make work meaningful because he is present in it somehow. He asks us to think less like an animal and ultimately to acknowledge his presence! No animal can do that!

I Know I Can Trust God Today!

Father, Help me today to know you and see you in everything that happens, in every person, in every word. Thank you for your enveloping presence and the sustaining courage to meet this day with excitement and hope. I need to say to you that I need truth today, your truth, to see through your lens and filters. I trust you to unveil my eyes, to uncork my ears, and replace my thoughts with your thoughts. I love how you have given your Spirit to do all this. I pray for this world, waiting for your redemption, who does not know your courage and truth. Give me your fire to stand on the hills bright, shining, with You. You make everything beautiful. Today will be no exception! In Jesus Name. AMEN!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Close your eyes and imagine looking at a flower.

Get a good image in your head.

Make it a beautiful flower.

What color is it?

Give it texture. Is it smooth, rough, lined, or overlapped with ridges?

Count the petals.

Put a stem on it.

Can you smell it? 

Let the imagination soak into your mind. 

Take a minute to examine the flower in your mind.

If you try to describe it to me you actually take away from its beauty. We open our eyes, then open our mouths, and beauty slips away. We have to discern it over and over again.

Yet all things are beautiful if we would think about them long enough. A spider is beautiful. A snake is beautiful when we begin to inspect it. We don’t have to like spiders and snakes like we do flowers, but they have their own inherent beauty. What Solomon has learned is that every event in life has its own inherent beauty. God is at work in all events. We don’t like every event. WE don’t smell every event like we do a flower, but with context and that hidden, connectedness to God at work, we begin to know, see, understand that there is more at work than FATE or UGLINESS.

Solomon doesn’t ignore the ugly parts of living. He doesn’t embrace bad things as friends. He doesn’t say death is as good as life or picking up stones is as good as tearing down walls or buildings made of stones. He is simply stating that there is a context, a connected string between that event and many other events, all of which God orchestrates in some beautiful pattern, which He only knows! I learn daily how to trust God, and believe He is on my side!

Oh, the Grip Eternity Has On My Heart!

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Philosophers have tried to capture the meaning of life for thousands of years, yet always seem to come up short. Solomon says that this is because, “God has placed eternity in our hearts.” Philosophical flashlights shine just three steps ahead. We can’t see the end. The tunnel is too long. We know there is more to life, to this journey, to these events we are living, but our understanding comes up short!

Solomon says, “That’s OK! God placed something of eternity within you so you will know it exists. You will want it, but since it is eternity, it will continually slip out of your grasp.”

All religions are man’s attempts to get a grip on the eternal, that slippery search for meaning and beauty. All religions practice rituals we’d never do anywhere else in life just to satisfy that continual gnawing and nagging thought:  “This can’t be all there is!”

To find meaning in life, Solomon takes a completely different route. His continuity with the rest of the Bible, that God is a giver, is astounding!

• Ecclesiastes 3:12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.  14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

The wise teacher writes TWO “I know” statements. He knows happiness and doing good are better activities on earth. What moron would say that evil is better? (Oh yeah, Lex Luther and Adolph Hitler, or baby killers or slave traders.)  Even work is good. Work brings satisfaction, i.e. meaning. Looking at a finished product, a garden planted, a house built, an afghan knitted, a cake baked, or a diploma on the wall is satisfying. Solomon connects satisfaction and pleasure to a point outside of ourselves in God alone. They are God’s gifts, not our right or guaranteed, but gifts!

He knows a second thing: God cloaks his beauty and the meaning of life for one purpose only: God wants people everywhere to revere Him.

• As people search for meaning, they are really searching for God.
• As people search for fun and happiness, they are really searching for God.
• As people work hard to finish a product they are really searching for a deeper connection with God’s work.

God hid eternity deep within our pores. We feel the unseen end of things. We know there is more to this life. Solomon says that when God gives satisfaction we feel complete. Our yearning feels completed. We get connected to the Eternal One. We sense His eternal grip on our hearts.  We look down that long tunnel to see God standing there with arms open wide! We lose ourselves in His gift and revere Him, knowing he’s been standing there for us all along!

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(Philip Yancey has one of the best books on unseen connections, “Rumors of Another World.” He asks, “Are we missing something?” and then shows all the ways we inherently know more exists and ways people implicitly want a connection to God. It’s brilliant!)