“When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man’s labor on earth – his eyes not seeing sleep day or night – 17. Then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discern its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it. 9:1: So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him…”
We have a general idea of what a riddle is, but I want to give the definition to give clear direction to what I think our text means. It means a puzzling fact, thing or person. A riddle is something that we have to figure out the meaning of, and quite often we cannot decipher its meaning. I think that the Book of Job shows us what a riddle can be like. The fact is that Job was puzzled as to why all of the bad things that happened to him happened at all, because he lived a good life. Do you realize that Job’s riddle was never solved? He never knew what had occurred between God and Satan that caused all of his problems. In our text, Solomon was dealing with the riddles of life that keep us awake at night: “his eyes not seeing sleep day or night.” We can’t solve all of the riddles of life because we are not smart enough to figure them out. There is too much that we would have to know, for example, why bad things happen to good people. God gave us brains so that we can think, but He did not give us infallible minds. Whenever things occur like the devastating tornadoes and hurricanes that continually destroy life and property. To things like this there is no “why” answer. All of this being true, what can do with the riddles of life? We can accept that they happen, and when they happen we can pray for those whose lives have been devastated, and many people volunteer to help the people rebuild. In other words, we can pray and minister to people when the unthinkable happens in their lives. The worst thing that we can do is to shake our fists at God for allowing such things. We forget that we live in a fallen world. When Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, our perfectly safe world was no more. I have found in my prayers over the riddles of life, there is no need for me to ask God “Why?” He doesn’t have to explain things to me. We can trust that God knows what has happened and is active in dealing with the lives of those who have been devastated. Many times people come out of devastating things that happen in their lives with a stronger belief in God, because they sought His presence in the crisis. It is understandable that people would be upset over devastating things that happen to them, but they need to understand that bitterness will not make the situation better. We just need to trust that God will take us through the hard times, as He does through the easy times. Trusting God is the answer. It does not answer the riddle, but it allows us to sleep at night and know that things will get better. In 9:1 Solomon wrote: “So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him…” I interpret this to mean that those who are righteous and wise turn things over to God and accept the outcome – whatever it is. It is very comforting to know that all things – good and bad – that happen in our lives are not riddles to God, and that we can put ourselves in His hands and He will see us through. I do not mean that God causes all of the puzzling things, merely that He is aware of them and is ministering to us in the process – calling us to Himself. What we need to do is listen for the voice of God in all of the situations of life, and trust all of those situations to Him. With God in charge, it will work out in the end. You might be going through something right now that seems like it will never end. Trust it to God and ride through in His great hands. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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