When our future is uncertain

Pandemic panic

For most of my life, Australia has been a place where we can plan our futures. I grew up knowing that it was up to me to apply myself sufficiently to make it through high school, to go to uni if I wanted to. Even getting a job was not too difficult, although it might have taken a while to get the one I wanted during the “recession we had to have.” But our futures were not uncertain. Ever since conscription for the Vietnamese war ended, Australians have pretty much been able to choose their futures.

There have been exceptions, of course. People born into poor families have often struggled to escape poverty. Indigenous communities have been trapped in a variety of vicious cycles. But generally, Australians have been able to look ahead with optimism.

The last two years, however, have brought turmoil and uncertainty into everyone’s lives. Well, there have been exceptions to this, too, such as professional sports people, or their spouses. But most Australians have suddenly found that their long-planned weddings are no longer possible. They can no longer see their parents or grandparents for years. Funerals are not a time to gather, but to mourn separately. Many have not even been able to leave their own homes for weeks on end. We cannot cross state borders without the uncertainty of whether we’ll be allowed to return home. We must get jabbed to have access to familiar places such as the local cafe.

The constant switches and changes between one set of absolute rules and the next has been dizzying, confusing, disheartening and discouraging. For most of my life my family has managed to come together for Christmas. Sure, living overseas has disrupted that at times, but that’s understandable. But this year we are all so bewildered and confused by the state of our state that we haven’t been able to come up with any plans to get together. Which just leaves me feeling even more bewildered.

Does anyone else have similar experiences?

Well, Australia, all I can say is: welcome to the normal state of the world! We have been living in such a privileged time and place that the sudden arbitrariness of our public square has stunned us. But for people in developing nations, or people in history, this constant uncertainty about the future has been an unchangeable feature of reality.

In fact, three thousand years ago this reality was so evident that even a king could discern it. Let’s hear Solomon’s take.

Bible

Ecclesiastes 11:1–10 NLT

1 Send your grain across the seas, and in time, profits will flow back to you. 2 But divide your investments among many places, for you do not know what risks might lie ahead. 3 When clouds are heavy, the rains come down. Whether a tree falls north or south, it stays where it falls. 4 Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest. 5 Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things. 6 Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both. 7 Light is sweet; how pleasant to see a new day dawning. 8 When people live to be very old, let them rejoice in every day of life. But let them also remember there will be many dark days. Everything still to come is meaningless. 9 Young people, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it. Do everything you want to do; take it all in. But remember that you must give an account to God for everything you do. 10 So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy. But remember that youth, with a whole life before you, is meaningless.

Solomon’s solution

Here at the end of Ecclesiastes we find Solomon’s final thoughts on the world, “under the sun.” He starts with advice on how to handle the uncertainty of the future. His advice is simple:

Ecclesiastes 11:4–6 (NLT)

4 Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant.

If they watch every cloud, they never harvest. ...

6 Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both.

Take action. Share what you have in case disaster strikes and you need a favour. Don’t spend your time trying to figure out whether conditions are just right, just get busy planting and doing whatever else you can. Don’t put all your eggs into one basket, because you don’t know what will work out and what won’t. (Solomon would make a great financial advisor.)

Give up trying to predict the future, because both nature and God are way too complicated! (Solomon would not make a great climate ambassador.)

Enjoy life while you're young, do whatever makes you feel good, just be aware that God my judge you (in this life, which is the scope of Solomon’s concern).

Ecclesiastes 12:6–8 NLT

6 Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well. 7 For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. 8 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless.”

Indeed, Solomon makes it clear in his final poetic passage, that even the powerful should enjoy life in their youth, because they are mortal and their death is just as assured and final as that of the weak. Yes, Solomon ends on that constant refrain of his: death makes everything meaningless.

But wait, there’s more!

But wait, there’s more!

Solomon has finished his argument, and his conclusion has been stated: everything is meaningless.

But along comes someone else (we’ll call them “the editor”) to explain why this bleak journey is preserved in the Bible.

Ecclesiastes 12:9–12 NLT

9 Keep this in mind: The Teacher was considered wise, and he taught the people everything he knew. He listened carefully to many proverbs, studying and classifying them. 10 The Teacher sought to find just the right words to express truths clearly. 11 The words of the wise are like cattle prods—painful but helpful. Their collected sayings are like a nail-studded stick with which a shepherd drives the sheep. 12 But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out.

Solomon’s under the sun approach was certainly exhaustive and authoritative. It demonstrated the inability of even the smartest and wisest to find real, meaningful answers to life’s struggles and questions in the material world. In fact, says the editor, you can spend your whole life searching this world for answers. And people still do.

Think of the self-help section of a modern bookshop. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked through one of these sections. I can remember trawling through a vast self-help section in a Barnes & Nobles in Northern California back in the 90’s. It was bewildering. So many diverse voices, so many different and conflicting approaches. So much contradictory advice. It left my head spinning.

And it’s even worse today. Think of the avalanche of opinions if you dare to google a question. I love what Google shows up for the meaning of life: a dictionary definition of the word, an image of the number “42,” alternative questions, a scientific answer, a philosophical answer, a psychological answer, and an organisational answer (note: no Christian answer). Think of the endless questions and answers on sites like reddit or facebook. You could spend your life lost in this depressing, self-contradictory, meaningless maze. That study will certainly wear you out.

But, the editor of Ecclesiastes says, the answers are actually simple:

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 NLT

13 That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. 14 God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.

Fear God. Not like Solomon did: he feared God’s arbitrary judgments. No, fear God like someone who knows him. Someone who knows that God loves them. I’m always reminded of C. S. Lewis’s wonderful explanation about Aslan: he’s not a tame lion.

And when we fear God, it is only natural that we will obey his commands. We have a light burden, you see. We don’t have to search the endless aisles of self-help. We don’t have to trawl through Google every time we make a decision. We don’t have to scroll through the endless posts of reddit or facebook. We just need to read God’s word.

I want to pause for a moment here, because this is such a radical concept. On one side we have the endless piles of meaningless human wisdom which people who don’t know God have to wade through. You can see why people who don’t know God are always uncertain, always seeking, always doubting whether they’ve found the answers or not.

Solomon wisely said:

Ecclesiastes 8:17 NLT

17 I realized that no one can discover everything God is doing under the sun. Not even the wisest people discover everything, no matter what they claim.

We have seen this demonstrated to us over the last two years. For two years we have been told, “follow the science, follow the medicine!” But the problem has been that the science, the medicine has been changing. As it always does. Science is human knowledge, and sometimes it’s wrong, sometimes it’s right, and sometimes it’s merely confusing. Furthermore, we can never be certain which one of these it is at any time. But our political leaders have unwisely attempted to treat science as if it were like God’s word: certain, unchanging, a reliable guide to a good life. As a result they’ve ended up tying themselves (and us) into knots, and inflaming so many tensions that, for example, Victoria is now in constant uproar.

Does this mean that we should ignore science or medicine? Of course not! But we must recognise that science is not like God’s word. The search for truth in science is endless and confusing. Science often travels down false paths and it can take the death of that generation of scientists before the search returns to more fruitful paths. (This is where the term “paradigm shift” came from.)

But on the other side, we have God’s word, which is unchanging. It doesn’t need to be revised or corrected or refined. It just needs to be read and understood. That is enough of an effort in itself!

When we learn to read God’s word well and put it into practice, then instead of an uncertain future, we find that our future becomes certain:

Revelation 21:1–4 NLT

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

No pandemic can shake our certainty. No lockdowns can keep us from God’s loving embrace. No social distancing will separate us from the love of Christ.

Romans 8:35–39 NLT

35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. 38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How wonderful it is to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified! How light is our burden, and how easy is the yoke that binds us to one another under Christ!

Let’s make understanding how God’s word applies to our life our main activity. Other learning can be useful, sure, especially for earning money, but let’s keep it in its place. This might sound impractical, unrealistic. But think about it: the greatest work done in this world has been done by people who applied Biblical principals to their jobs. You can’t do that if you don’t know the Bible. So, let’s make that job number one!

Let’s pray,

Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that we have such incredible access to your word in our own language, and that we have such incredible resources to help us understand it. Help us to build our lives on the secure knowledge of your word, rather than the shifting sands of worldly wisdom.

In Jesus name, Amen.