Beautiful Day

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Ecclesiastes

I'm feeling a bit Ecclesiastes at the moment.
To me it's like a book of renovations. Every so often the owner of the house will decide to renovate the house.
The process doesn't look so pretty and pleasant. It's all messy. Everything turned upside down, inside out and round about.Things been pulled down. The old orders and structures are ruined.
But the hope is, after the messy process, the new looks will always look better than the old ones.
The house doesn't choose to renovate itself. The owner does. The house doesn't understand and can't see why things happened to it. But the owner sees the whole picture and he pays for it.

I remember the first time I read Ecclesisates it nearly destroyed me. I just got saved, and I was at college. Up until then all my life value was around study. If you study hard enough and study all the time you'll then be fine. I was in China. Very heavy pressure around study for a high school and new college student. Then this verse hit me so hard:"But beyond this, my son, be warned; the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is weary to the body."(Eccl12:12) In Chinese translation which I was reading then, it actually translated as study. Then I suddenly felt that studying was vanity and striving after wind. I felt all my old value system and structure was suddenly destroyed and I couldn't find the new system just yet. I felt so grey and depressed for a while. Over the time I had more understanding toward that period of time and I realised that the path I was striving for isn't the right one that God has designed for me to walk in.

God has designed for each and everyone of us a unique purpose. Only this purpose will bring us the ultimate satisfaction and fulfilment. Outside this purpose, no matter how rich or successful we might get, deep down in our soul we'll feel this emptiness, vanity and pain. Joy doesn't come from things outside, but inside. It comes from the knowing that you're fulfilling your purpose.

It starts from giving your life(the house) to the Lord. Hand to Him the ownership. And let Him take over and start renovating. You might not see the full picture overnight, but gradually, step by step, over the time He'll give the old shabby house a brand new look.

And at the moment, I think God is doing a major work in my house(again!). A lot of the things have been pulled down. I'm puzzled, unsettled, and sometimes angry and frustrated. I can't really see what He's doing. But I know He's doing something as I feel messy!
I guess there's nothing much I can do about it, just have to wait and see, and try not to be anxious.

As seen by Susan @ 11:11 AM