Questions Without Answers

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Catey Stover in Freedom Fighters

“Whatever one is, he has been named already, For it is known that he is man; And he cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he. Since there are many things that increase vanity, How is man the better? For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the sun?”

Ecclesiastes 6:10-12 (NKJV)

 

Sometimes the Secularlandian in my mind rears his ugly head and ask’s, “If God has all the answers, did He change all the questions?” I get to thinking like this when I’m in those valley moments where I find myself sitting on the bounder of contentment and disenchantment. On one side, there’s a Jesus-provided peace like no other but on the other is that unsettled stuff that apparently has been back burnered so it’s not exactly gone but it ain’t exactly out in the forefront gettin’ dealt with.  This is when the Ecclesiastical part of my mind kicks in, “surely Solomon has some wisdom to impart?”

So, here I am in the Book of Ecclesiastes, when it suddenly dawns on me that this particular piece of Solomon’s wisdom starts off with, “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”’ Oookkaaayyy…umm, so this falls under the, “If God has all the answers, did He change all the questions?” heading for certain, but that doesn’t mean there ain’t anything in here. Au Contraire mon ami, there is much to glean from this point forward, but for now I think we’ll land in the valley of contentment.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17

Now you may have just wondered “Wassup with that verse? How does that fit into this?” Well, with the coming of a new creation will come a new set of values with new motivations. It’s here where we can understand the Teacher more clearly when he says “everything is meaningless.” To put it a bit more bluntly (and I may have said this in the past) if it doesn’t serve a purpose in eternity, it’s enterally useless. We realize (or at least we should) that nothing this world offers brings lasting contentment. That’s only gonna be found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” — Deuteronomy 29:29

That’s another verse that pop’s up when I think that God has changed all the questions. Sometimes I get to thinking that I haven’t really arrived in my spiritually understanding of God and I get to wondering, “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” Guess that’s why I’m in Ecclesiastes 6;10-12 trying to make sense of it all. Its here where I find that Solomon may have had some dark ideas on life.

It’s also here where Solomon says in effect that fate is fixed. We may say, “It is no use contending with fate” and that may be true BUT Christ taught a preordination of things. So, His fate wasn’t mechanical but moral, the Cross wasn’t a blind destiny but a wise decree. Solomon also says that man’s intellect is feeble, maybe, but if connected with Christ it can do something greater, and as for those questions without answers,

“The more words that are spoken, the more smoke there is in the air. And who is any better off? And who knows what’s best for us as we live out our meager smoke-and-shadow lives? And who can tell any of us the next chapter of our lives?”

Hmmm…. This part of Solomons wisdom is mystifying and makes me wonder about being in the valley. However, I do know this, God never made the world to be a place of rest and satisfaction, that should be found in Him. We really know so very little about the true nature of things and what little we do know we kinda haphazardly stumble upon. Then we’ll compare’em, separate’em, sort’em, compound’em, and when it comes times to make a judgement call on’em, we fall short of the mark.

The correct response to these questions may just lie in one’s use of the faith that God has given us to function within the relationship that He has opened to us. If there ain’t no Kingdom of God or grand purpose being worked out then nothing else matters but this moment and that, my friends, is the mindset of the intellectual and ruling elite. Without God’s truth there’s no contentment, if there’s no contentment then there’s questions without answers. Amen?

 

Written by Chris Hughes: Chris is a husband, a father, has an education in Biblical doctrine and is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy. He has been a Freedom Fighter contributor since 2008. You can e-mail at cphughes515@verizon.net.


Think About This: “O Lord, we pray we may take care of our inner man. We pray that which we variously call our spirit, our soul, our inner man, may come to know of the cleansing, the purifying water. We may be clean and right and ready for life or death.” – A.W. Tozer

The Daily Bible Reading: Leviticus 7-9; Matthew 25:31-46| You can download our 2022 Daily Bible Reading Plan by clicking here. 

This Week’s Verse to Memorize: “Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. ” Romans 12:16

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