Monday's Musings: Take Joy

Greer, AZ May 2010, photo taken by Kara Haberstock, all rights reserved

This world is broken.
“Don’t be surprised if you see a poor person being oppressed by the powerful and if justice is being miscarried throughout the land….matters of justice get lost in red tape and bureaucracy” (Ecclesiastes 5:8).
We are broken. We all know that we are. There are parts of us that are empty and just ache so. You can try to fix your own brokenness with money or people or things that make you feel good for now. It won’t work.
Money runs out.
“Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth- expect perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers!” (10-11)
And everything else eventually passes away. Possessions wear out and break. People leave. All falls to pieces.
“We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born. We can’t take our riches with us” (15).
And all of this seems quite hopeless. We seem quite trapped in our fate. But there is one who has come to give life, abundant joyful life.
“To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life- this is indeed a gift from God. God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past” (19-20).
I want to be so busy enjoying the life God has given me that I have no time to bemoan what has passed. This I think is what it looks like to seize every moment. I want to live in celebration. I want to live in joy.
It seems like the appropriate spirit with which to begin the New Year.