In his book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Mark Batterson writes about a vacation he took with his family to Orlando, Florida:
One morning they were sitting at a stoplight in their rental van. The light turned green, and the car in front of us didn't go, so Mark decided to give them a little "love tap" on the horn. But when he hit the horn, it got jammed, and he couldn't turn it off. “The poor people in front of us!” he thought. “They must have thought I was a raging lunatic!”
So he quickly pulled into a gas station while everybody stared at them. They were mortified, but fortunately the horn stopped honking when Mark turned the van off. So he started the van back up, and they got onto the highway. About two miles down the road, the horn started honking again without Mark even touching it. So they were driving down the highway at seventy miles per hour blaring their horn at everybody and their brother. Mark said, “I'm not sure what people were thinking, but it felt like we were screaming at people. Get out of my lane, sucker! This road belongs to us!”
Mark didn't know what to do. “Malfunctioning horns weren't covered in my driver's ed class,” he said. So he did what he does whenever anything is broken: he hit it. He just kept pounding the horn, and it would actually stop honking for a few seconds. Then it would sporadically start honking again.
Mark said, “That fifteen-minute ride would rank as one of the most chaotic driving experiences of my adult life. But you know what? We're still laughing about it… In fact, I don't think my kids will ever forget the now infamous ‘honking horn’ incident.”
Most of their trip was preplanned. They planned on swimming. They planned on catching lizards. They planned on visiting the Magic Kingdom. “And all of these planned activities were a blast, Mark says. “But the highlight of the trip was totally unplanned.” You can't plan a horn malfunction, but that horn malfunction caused his family as much laughter as the rest of the trip combined.
Mark comments: “Some of the best things in life are totally unplanned and unscripted.”
For example, he says, “The greatest movies have the highest levels of uncertainty. Whether the uncertainty is romantic or dramatic, scripts with the highest level of uncertainty make the best movies. In the same vein… high levels of uncertainty make the best lives.” And that’s what faith is all about. It is “embracing the uncertainties of life” (Mark Batterson, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Multnomah, 2006, pp. 88-89; www.PreachingToday.com).
The question is, “How?” In these uncertain times, when you’re healthy one day and fighting for your life the next, when you’re financially stable one day and struggling to pay the bills the next, when you’re madly in love one day and your lover breaks your heart the next… In these uncertain times, how do you embrace the uncertainty? How do you welcome the unpredictable? How do you accept life as it comes? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Ecclesiastes 6, Ecclesiastes 6, where the Bible addresses the unpredictability of life.
Ecclesiastes 6:1-2 There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil (ESV).
It’s sad when a man has everything he could want or need but fails to enjoy his God-given bounty. In fact, Solomon calls it a “grievous evil,” literally, an “evil sickness.”
Ecclesiastes 6:3-6 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place? (ESV)
That is, do not all end up in the grave?
The stillborn child is better off than the unsatisfied rich man, who has 100 children and never dies (“i.e., he has no burial, vs.3). Even if he lives 2,000 years, twice as long as Methuselah (vs.6), yet hates his life, the stillborn child is better off, because the stillborn child at least finds rest. That is, the stillborn child experiences freedom from toil, anxiety, and misery. The stillborn child is better off than the unsatisfied rich man, who is also no better off than the fool.
Ecclesiastes 6:7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied (ESV).
Literally, his soul is not filled.
Ecclesiastes 6:8 For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? (ESV)
The wise man is the poor man, who knows how to conduct himself before others. Yet he is no better off than the fool if he loathes his life.
Ecclesiastes 6:9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite [or soul]: this also is vanity and a striving after wind (ESV).
It’s useless for the soul to wander. Constantly looking for more is futile. So be satisfied with what you see before you. Be content with what you have. If you want to embrace the uncertainties of life…
ENJOY THE GOOD DAYS.
Delight in the good things God gives you. Give thanks for the good times.
One of the greatest paradoxes in American life is that while, on average, Americans have gotten more comfortable over time, their happiness has fallen. According to the United States Census Bureau, average household income in the US, adjusted for inflation, was higher in 2019 than it has ever been for every income level.
Americans are eating out more. They’re receiving more government services, and they are living in larger homes. New American homes in 2016 were 1,000 square feet larger than in 1973 and living space per person, on average, has nearly doubled.
Even so, the General Social Survey, which has been measuring social trends among Americans since 1972, showed a long-term, gradual decline in happiness—and rise in unhappiness—from 1988 to 2020 (Arthur C. Brooks, “Are We Trading Our Happiness for Modern Comforts?” The Atlantic, 10-22-20; www. PreachingToday.com).
Americans have experienced increasing levels of comfort and prosperity, especially in the years before Covid, but they are enjoying life less and less. As Solomon says, “This is an evil sickness” (vs.2). Now, there is nothing wrong with comfort and prosperity. But there is something grievously wrong with failing to appreciate it. So appreciate what God has given you, and enjoy the good times.
When the doctor told Brenda Martindale that she only had three months to live, she and Chris (her husband) asked me, “What do we do?”
That’s when I shot a silent prayer to heaven, asking the Lord to give me wisdom. Then I told them, “Don’t worry about tomorrow. Brenda may live three days, three months, or three years! Just enjoy the good days God gives you together.”
And that’s exactly what they did. Every time I visited Brenda in the hospital, she expressed joy and gratitude for the good things God gave her that day, for good friends, and for a good life so far. Sure, there were hard days, but she enjoyed the good days, which helped her and Chris embrace an uncertain future. Brenda ended up living six months (twice as long as the doctor predicted), and Chris died just a few years later, but both learned to appreciate life as God gave it to them.
You do the same. Stop worrying about an uncertain future and start enjoying the good days God gives you. Replace your anxiety with an appreciation for the pleasures God gives you every day. If you want to embrace the uncertainties of life, 1st, Enjoy the good days. Then 2nd…
TRUST GOD EVERYDAY.
Rely on God’s sovereign plan for you. On good and bad days, depend on God’s control of all the events of your life.
Ecclesiastes 6:10 Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he (ESV).
You cannot argue with God, who knows you and has named all the events of your life. Now, to name something is to exercise authority over that thing or person (cf. Genesis 2:19-20). Thus, God has authority over everything that happens to you, whom He knows and loves intimately. So stop arguing with God and accept His will for you.
Ecclesiastes 6:11-12 The more words, the more vanity, and what is the advantage to man? For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun? (ESV)
You don’t know the future, so you don’t know what’s good for you today. However, God knows, which makes your arguments useless. So trust His plan for you. Whatever happens each day, know that the God who loves you has allowed it for your good.
English missionary Hudson Taylor lost his wife and a child while serving in China. Two weeks after Maria, Hudson's wife, gave birth, the baby died and Maria herself had little strength remaining. Hudson went to her and asked, “Darling, do you know that you are dying?”
“Dying? Do you think so? What makes you think that?” she said.
“I can see it, darling. Your strength is giving way.”
“Can it be? I feel no pain, only weariness.”
“You are going home. Soon you will be with Jesus.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Maria whispered, “I am so sorry.”
Hudson looked at her and gently said, “You are not sorry to go to be with Jesus.”
“Oh no, it's not that. But it does grieve me to leave you alone at such a time. Yet He will be with you and meet all your needs.”
A missionary who stood nearby later said, “I never witnessed such a scene. As dear Mrs. Taylor was breathing her last, Mr. Taylor knelt down and committed her to the Lord, thanking him for having given her to him and for the twelve-and-a-half years of happiness they had had together.”
A few days later Mr. Taylor wrote:
“I cannot describe to you my feelings. I do not understand them myself. I feel like a person stunned with a blow, or recovering from a faint, and as yet but partially conscious. My Father has ordered it, so therefore I know it is—it must be—best, and I thank him for so ordering it. I feel utterly crushed. Oftentimes my heart is nigh to breaking, but withal I had almost said I never knew what peace and happiness were before—so much have I enjoyed in the very sorrow” (William J. Petersen, 25 Surprising Marriages, Baker, 1997; www.PreachingToday.com).
Hudson Taylor trusted that God’s plan was best even though it hurt him deeply.
God used him probably more than anyone else in China’s history. During Taylor’s 51 years of service there, his China Inland Mission established 20 mission stations, brought 849 missionaries to the field, trained some 700 Chinese workers, raised four million dollars by faith, and developed a witnessing Chinese church of 125,000. Historians say that at least 35,000 were his own converts and that he baptized some 50,000 people (Ed Reese, The Life and Ministry of James Hudson Taylor, www.wholesomewords.org/missions/biotaylor2.html).
He did all this during times of political unrest in China with several threats on his life. To be sure, Hudson Taylor embraced the uncertainties of life, all because he trusted God in every situation. Instead of trying to do life and ministry in his own strength, he relied on the Lord to do it all through him, trusting God’s will in everything.
You do the same. If you want to embrace the uncertainties of life, 1st, Enjoy the good days. 2nd, Trust God every day. And 3rd…
GROW IN THE BAD DAYS.
Gain wisdom in times of adversity. Learn the lessons that only hard times can teach you.
Ecclesiastes 7:1 A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth (ESV).
It is better to come to the end of life with a good reputation (or a good name) than it is to start life with a good ointment, which is a symbol of joy (Ecclesiastes 9:8).
Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth (ESV).
Grieving death teaches you a whole lot more than celebrating life. You discover more wisdom in a funeral home than in a fun house. Grief teaches you more than joy.
And a rebuke teaches you more than laughter.
Ecclesiastes 7:5-7 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity. Surely oppression drives the wise into madness [or folly], and a bribe corrupts the heart (ESV).
Oppression and a bribe can turn a wise man into a fool. But another wise man’s rebuke can turn such a man back from his ruinous ways. That’s why a rebuke, though hard to hear, is better than the cackling laughter of fools. A rebuke can lead to lasting change. Cackling laughter is like thorns, which “burn quickly and noisily and are easily extinguished” (Schultz, Evangelical Commentary on the Bible).
Grief teaches you more than joy. A rebuke teaches you more than laughter.
And the end of a matter teaches you more than the beginning.
Ecclesiastes 7:8-10 Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this (ESV).
Those who long for the “good old days” are fools, because the “good old days” were not that good. In fact, with God in charge, the future will be much better than the past. So set aside your anger and be patient until you see the end of things.
Grief teaches you more than joy. A rebuke teaches you more than laughter. And the end of a matter teaches you more than the beginning. So learn the lessons that only hard times can teach you.
Gain wisdom in times of adversity, because wisdom will protect you from evil in good times and bad.
Ecclesiastes 7:11-12 Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it (ESV).
Wisdom is good when you receive wealth, because it protects you and preserves your life. It shades you from squandering your wealth and saves you from ruining your life. Hard times give you wisdom, which protects you in good times. So learn the lessons that only the hard times can teach you.
Several years ago, Al Hsu had laser eye surgery to correct his vision. His friend had given him a 25 percent-off coupon, so he used it for the surgery, but it didn’t quite take. His vision went from 20/400 to 20/40, something he called “tantalizingly close to clear vision, but still fuzzy.”
Then he attended an InterVarsity Asian American staff conference, where God moved his heart during worship. He squinted to make out the lyrics of a song projected on the far wall. Then he closed his eyes as they repeated the chorus. He asked God to direct him. Then, when the song cycled back to an earlier verse, he opened his watering eyes. The lyrics on the screen shimmered slightly, then came crisply into focus. He could see. Clearly. Wow. He could read every word easily, without squinting.
Hsu wondered, “Had God just healed me?” He blinked several times, and his vision wavered back and forth. Clear, blurry, clear, blurry. Then he realized what was happening. While singing he had been tearing up, moved by God's call, and the thin layer of water on his eyeballs functioned like contact lenses. The tears had been making his vision clearer… He said, “I suspect that I will never see as clearly as I do when I have tears in my eyes” (Al Hsu, “The Vision Thing,” Christianity Today, 2-21-08; www. PreachingToday.com).
Tears have a way of making things very clear if you choose to let your Loving Lord teach you in the trial.
George Bonanno, a clinical psychologist at Columbia University's Teachers College, asks the question, “Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as an opportunity to learn and grow?” Bonanno coined the term “potentially traumatic event” because he believes “[e]very frightening event… has the potential to be traumatic or not to the person experiencing it.”
Maria Konnikova, who quotes Bonanno in The New Yorker, explains that “living through adversity… doesn't guarantee that you'll suffer going forward. What matters is whether that adversity becomes traumatizing.” She says, “Frame adversity as a challenge, and you become more flexible and able to deal with it, move on, learn from it, and grow” (Maria Konnikova, “How People Learn to Become Resilient,” The New Yorker, 2-11-16; www.PreachingToday.com).
James 1 puts it this way: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).
See adversity as an opportunity to grow!
Ecclesiastes 7:13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? (ESV)
God is sovereign. You cannot undo what He has done. So…
Ecclesiastes 7:14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him (ESV).
There’s that phrase again. We saw it earlier in Ecclesiastes 6:12. You don’t know the future, but God does. Life is uncertain, but God is sovereign. So on a good day, rejoice; and on a bad day, consider, literally SEE God’s hand at work.
If you want to embrace the uncertainties of life, enjoy the good days, grow in the bad days, but trust God every day.
Steven Curtis Chapman once said: “We can control where we allow things that we can't understand to fall. They either fall between us and God, and we become angry. Or we allow these things to fall outside of us and press us in closer to God (Lindy Warren, "Steven Curtis Chapman's Silent Nights," Christian Reader, March/April 2002, p. 59; www.PreachingToday.com).
My dear friends, please, don’t allow the unexpected and unexplained events of your life get between you and God. Instead, let them press you closer to God, who will wrap His arms around you and give you the grace to grow through it all.
