Hello. So I know its not the most "Christian" movie, but I just watched Borat with my wife and her parents. I forgot how much male nudity is in that movie. Luckily, they thought it was hilarious. As did I. For the 10th time seeing it.
Very nice! High five!
Also, please excuse any weird formatting, I'm doing this post on my iPhone.
Reading for September 2
Ecclesiastes 1:1-3:22
This book is awesome. The first time I ever read this book was one night when I had been dumped by a girlfriend and was super depressed about it. Now, this obviously isn't the most hopeful of books, so it only made my depression worse. For the past ten years all I would tell people about Ecclesiastes is "don't read it when you're depressed". But now I'm seeing how cool this is and in fact, if read correctly could help someone who is down and out.
The auhor of this book is only known as "the teacher" but for good reason. This book, or at least the first few chapters, attempts to answer the oldest question of all time: "why are we here?" coming off of Job, a book that attempted to answer the second biggest question of all time: "why do bad things happen to good people?" (answer: because God felt like it) we are getting really deep into what makes the human mind stay up at night.
Ok, so why are we here? The teacher first concludes that everything we do, and in fact our whole lives, are completely meaningless. A wise man and a fool will both end up dead one day, so what's the point of attaining wisdom? He says each will be forgotten in the coming years so it is futile to seek wisdom - a "chasing after the wind" as he calls it.
But that's just wisdom. What about posessions? Well, as you probably guessed, those are meaningless too. The teacher was also a king and had achieved everything anyone could ever want. Land, money, power, women, children, and found it all meaningless. He would have to leave all that to someone and he has no idea whether the heir will be wise or foolish.
To me, this is incredibly freeing. As people, and specifically, as Americans, we are constantly lusting after something. Whether its a meterial thing or a relationship thing or a status thing, we always think that once we get his one thing, then we'll be happy. But here we can see that someone who has achieved the absolute pinnacle of success and wealth and popularity found it all useless. So we can know for sure that getting that next thing will not make us happier, it will only make us want something else.
So what is the teacher's conclusion for why we are here? To find a job we enjoy doing and to do it. Or more simply - work on what makes you happy. This is the American dream. Finding a job that makes you happy, and I consider myself incredibly blessed to be in a job that makes me happy. And I think I get where "teach" was going with this. If you enjoy what you do, you will work harder at it, producing a better product or service, thereby improving the quality of life of those around you.
Another thing I want to mention before I forget is the awesome connection to Job that I almost completely missed. This teaher had everything - money, children, power, popularity. Sound familiar? Job had all those things too, and he had all those thing taken away and then given back to him. When you think about that cycle, its completely meaningless. And it really made me reconsider my outrage toward God for taking away everything Job had.
Sorry, one more thing I want to point out:
God’s purpose is that people should fear him.
Really? Well if that's true then mission accomplished.
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
10 Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.
This is similar to the "struck down but not destroyed" bit from a couple days ago. I've always loved that last line.
Psalm 46:1-11
1 God is our refuge and strength,
always ready to help in times of trouble.
2 So we will not fear when earthquakes come
and the mountains crumble into the sea.
3 Let the oceans roar and foam.
Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!
So I guess if we fear God, we have no need to fear anything else.
Proverbs 22:15
15 A youngster’s heart is filled with foolishness,
but physical discipline will drive it far away
Awesome. This blogger app works pretty good. Pretty well? Pretty good. Excuse the many typos, I'll clean it up when I get back on a computer.
Love. Its what makes a subaru a subaru.
Very nice! High five!
Also, please excuse any weird formatting, I'm doing this post on my iPhone.
Reading for September 2
Ecclesiastes 1:1-3:22
This book is awesome. The first time I ever read this book was one night when I had been dumped by a girlfriend and was super depressed about it. Now, this obviously isn't the most hopeful of books, so it only made my depression worse. For the past ten years all I would tell people about Ecclesiastes is "don't read it when you're depressed". But now I'm seeing how cool this is and in fact, if read correctly could help someone who is down and out.
The auhor of this book is only known as "the teacher" but for good reason. This book, or at least the first few chapters, attempts to answer the oldest question of all time: "why are we here?" coming off of Job, a book that attempted to answer the second biggest question of all time: "why do bad things happen to good people?" (answer: because God felt like it) we are getting really deep into what makes the human mind stay up at night.
Ok, so why are we here? The teacher first concludes that everything we do, and in fact our whole lives, are completely meaningless. A wise man and a fool will both end up dead one day, so what's the point of attaining wisdom? He says each will be forgotten in the coming years so it is futile to seek wisdom - a "chasing after the wind" as he calls it.
But that's just wisdom. What about posessions? Well, as you probably guessed, those are meaningless too. The teacher was also a king and had achieved everything anyone could ever want. Land, money, power, women, children, and found it all meaningless. He would have to leave all that to someone and he has no idea whether the heir will be wise or foolish.
To me, this is incredibly freeing. As people, and specifically, as Americans, we are constantly lusting after something. Whether its a meterial thing or a relationship thing or a status thing, we always think that once we get his one thing, then we'll be happy. But here we can see that someone who has achieved the absolute pinnacle of success and wealth and popularity found it all useless. So we can know for sure that getting that next thing will not make us happier, it will only make us want something else.
So what is the teacher's conclusion for why we are here? To find a job we enjoy doing and to do it. Or more simply - work on what makes you happy. This is the American dream. Finding a job that makes you happy, and I consider myself incredibly blessed to be in a job that makes me happy. And I think I get where "teach" was going with this. If you enjoy what you do, you will work harder at it, producing a better product or service, thereby improving the quality of life of those around you.
Another thing I want to mention before I forget is the awesome connection to Job that I almost completely missed. This teaher had everything - money, children, power, popularity. Sound familiar? Job had all those things too, and he had all those thing taken away and then given back to him. When you think about that cycle, its completely meaningless. And it really made me reconsider my outrage toward God for taking away everything Job had.
Sorry, one more thing I want to point out:
God’s purpose is that people should fear him.
Really? Well if that's true then mission accomplished.
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
10 Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.
This is similar to the "struck down but not destroyed" bit from a couple days ago. I've always loved that last line.
Psalm 46:1-11
1 God is our refuge and strength,
always ready to help in times of trouble.
2 So we will not fear when earthquakes come
and the mountains crumble into the sea.
3 Let the oceans roar and foam.
Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!
So I guess if we fear God, we have no need to fear anything else.
Proverbs 22:15
15 A youngster’s heart is filled with foolishness,
but physical discipline will drive it far away
Awesome. This blogger app works pretty good. Pretty well? Pretty good. Excuse the many typos, I'll clean it up when I get back on a computer.
Love. Its what makes a subaru a subaru.
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