A few years ago I came to the realization that a milkshake in New England is very different than most other states in our country. Can you guess what is the missing ingredient? Milk; Ice Cream; Flavor; or is it Sugar? Make a guess and we'll talk tomorrow.
On the lighter side, Why do golfers hate cake? Well of course, because of the fear of getting a slice. You have to be a golfer to fully understand the humor in this one, of which I am not a good one. But for clarification, a slice is to hit the ball in such a way as to send the ball off course, totally off of the green from the hole. Hope this helps the joke to make sense. Ha!
Monday 9/4
Eccl. 4:4 "Then I observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors. But this, too, is meaningless-like chasing the wind."
Here Solomon try's to focus out thoughts on the proper thing that should be our motivating force for our labor/work.
First he states what shouldn't be the motivation for our work -- envy.
Then on the other hand our motivation for working should be our desire to bring -- benefit/fullfilment for others.
We find in this book a number of admonishments about our work & how we should look at it. (Eccl. 2:24; 3:13; 3:22) to name a few. We should rather than being motivated by jealousy or envy we should be motived by our desire to know & please God through the using of the gifts He has given us in order to bring benefit to others.
In Num. 25 we see Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron the priest, had a great zeal to bring Israel back to the righteous ways so that they should desire to live purely before God. He called them to turn from godless living & rather to desire to wholly follow in God's ways. His desire to follow God ultimately brought the nation back to righteousness & blessing.
In 1 Kings 19 Elijah had followed God with great zeal but Israel had turned from God. So God told him to lift up a few godly leaders in ordere to set the example for the nation of men who wanted to faithfully follow after God. He helped to set the face of the few who desired to follow God toward following His daily direction to use their gifts to go straight ahead with great zeal toward God's instruction & Israel was revived.
So I say all of this is to say to us; Point our motivations for success so that God will be honored & glorified rather than being more successful than our neighbor. Then our lives will have been lived in order to have the ultimate meaning. In other words, success isn't evil or to be disdained, but rather that the definition of success is based on pointing our world to right living before God our creator.
What greater actions could we live out than to bring honor to our amazing Heavenly Father our creator.
So Go With God for then His gifts to us bring about the greatest fulfillment in our world. Could we as parents ask for anything greater than for our children to live so that they respect the things that we have left to them? How blessed we are to be given these gifts & talents, in order that we may use them to bring honor to Him, the Savior of all mankind.
Flavor