Resistance is Futile - Day 259 Month 9-15 Week 35-7
Today's Reading (Bible in 1 year)
2 Kings 14:28-15:31, Ecclesiastes 1:1-11, Daniel 2:1-18, Ephesians 3
Resistance is Futile
Have you ever wondered? I have! What’s the point of it all? Those thoughts are quite depressing.
As I’ve reached my mid 60s I find time turns faster and faster. It seems just a few days back I was realizing we had reached the summer solstice and that just seemed a few days after Christmas. Now we’re in the middle of September and almost halfway to the winter solstice.
Everything cycles. The earth rotates daily and reveals night and day, the moon rotates once every 27.3 days and cycles through its phases every 29.5 days. The earth, with its moon, cycles around the sun every 365 ¼ days. It goes on and on.
Seasons change, water cycles from lakes and oceans, evaporates into storm clouds, and the storm clouds pour their moisture over the earth. But that water then pours into streams and rivers and lakes and oceans. The cycle continues.
We are born, we live our lives, we may have children, we work, we retire, we die. Life cycles through. If we have kids, our kids go through the same cycle, just as my parents and their parents did.
The Preacher, who we assume is Solomon, in Ecclesiastes says, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” He’s describing the futility and fleeting nature of life. He’s saying it’s all futile.
So we search for purpose in our lives.
In today’s reading in 2 Kings, we have read about seven kings struggling for power and then dying. Some ruled for years and others for only a short time. Each one was born, had children, reigned and died.
In Daniel we read about a king who was willing to destroy all his wise men because none were able to tell the king what the king dreamed in order to interpret. It seems to be a pointless life to become wise and then face death because you are unable to tell the king what he dreamed, especially when the king had not revealed it to anyone. Yet Daniel shows that what seems impossible to us is not impossible for God.
So what’s the point of it all?
The apostle Paul is talking to the church at Ephesus, but he also seems to bring hope to our futility dilemma.
“ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19).
From this I see that we can know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. If life is only a cycle that ends in death, then purpose becomes difficult to find. But Paul points us toward something that transcends that cycle: knowing the love of Christ.
We also can have faith and be indwelt by that loving God. Through that experience we are rooted and grounded in love. That means we not only experience it but we love others.
Oh, here Steve goes again. “We can love our neighbours as we love ourselves.” I’m just going to pass all the deep theological meanings of what we have read today and say one thing. Love gives purpose. Even more, God is love. Our purpose is to love God and love others. Maybe the answer to ‘What’s the point of it all?’ is actually pretty simple. Love.
Have a great day!
Steve
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