o worship the king

My scripture study this morning took me to Ecclesiastes, and Solomon. He was the wisest, richest, most powerful human king who ever graced this planet. He did more than any man of means in terms of physical accomplishments. He set himself to gaining wisdom through experience, both negative and positive, both hedonistic and industrious. And what echoes down through the ages to us are the words, "There is nothing new under the sun...everything is meaningless and folly". What an epitaph to human existence! Is there no antidote? My son basically said the same thing with his excessive life, a life that craved more and more experiences, could never find enough thrill or just enough to remind himself that he was alive, until death overtook him. The door of excess slammed in his face, not giving him his heart's desire, but taking it away.

I have thought carefully about my life. It is the beginning of the Christmas season, where excess in the US is at an all-time high. We buy and buy and buy, hoping to fill up the coffers of our soul, to find happiness, to fit in and do whatever anybody else does...and more. Yet the holiday season produces more depression and suicides than any other time of the year. I think about the passing seasons in terms of my faith, and how much Jesus Christ is actually the chosen King and Prince of Peace in my own territory. I must admit, I long to see Him crowned. I am so tired of sitting on the throne, trying to control everything, trying to make sense of a life that cannot be understood outside the context of His complete lordship. Seems like every Christmas another stroke is added to the portrait of His royalty in my heart, another jewel set in His crown-but I long to see Him rise up off the throne, mount His horse and ride right through this landscape of my life. I wish to see everything bow to Him, because maybe I've lived long enough, and excessively enough, that I know I cannot find happiness if my Lord is not free to survey all I have. It's His anyway, no matter what I do. I just long to bow before that Presence in my life and affirm the truth of the matter.

Solomon wound up his book by declaring that God's gift to us is enjoyment of what we have in this life, and the whole matter of living is fearing and obeying Him. We have it all backwards-our gain comes through giving everything up to Someone else. In this alone we find content. We also find the power to accept gratefully all that we do receive from Him in the end. I find so often, and have become so glad, that I'm not given what I desire until God sees I can have the enjoyment of it. And sometimes that means doing without for a long, long time. My son lost all that was dear to him by his own hand. And in the absence of those things, I believe he will learn the lesson of the prodigal. For myself, today I would worship the King.