This blog/ podcast is going to be different.
Life has its stuff. in some versions of the bible, they are called seasons. In the NIV version, I am going to use it called time.
Here is the portion of text I am going to use: Ecclesiastes 3 1- 8
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
As always I will look at this from two perspectives. Faith and Recovery. This may take a few installments.
Verse one says basically seasons happen and there is not necessarily a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card.’ If you are new to this bible stuff you can learn by reading a lot to get an idea of how to take it. With diligence, you can justify anything by breaking up the Word.
Let’s look at what it says. Simply it says stuff happens. Life has stuff. It also simply says stuff happens to some degree for all of us.
This passage does not imply you get bad if you are bad. In other passages, it does imply there are consequences for bad behavior.
To get some context we need to keep in mind the author some scholars feel may be Solomon king of Isreal. Like life, Solomon is not a simple man.
The Bible tells his story. Solomon was the son of David who was the renowned king of Israel. David was blessed by God. But made mistakes. Solomon was blessed by God with wisdom and immense wealth. Solomon like his father was imperfect, but unlike his father could not take correction. Solomon had everything he could ask for. But he wanted more than God gave him. God told him to keep away from foreign women. Solomon did the opposite, He married every foreign woman he wanted and built temples for their gods. Here we have to introduce the concept of boundaries. the God of Isreal set clear boundaries. Don’t do this or this will happen. We humans hate boundaries. We feel if God loved us He wouldn’t set boundaries. Unfortunately, God is not our puppet. We are his creation under His authority. Solomon was gifted by God. but if you look at this book you see his gift of wisdom, but it is tainted with a flavor of cynicism. God kept his word to Solomon but left the flavor of cynicism.
To understand the bible we need to be aware of the dual voices God allows to come thru. Reading the Bible is an act of listening. You have to hear God’s message, And you need to hear the man’s message. That is the beauty of the Bible. If you ask God he will let you listen in stereo as it were. There is the human channel and the God channel at the same time. The human voice is the counterpoint to God’s voice.
With this view, we will use these passages of Ecclesiastes to look at faith and recovery as we deal with life.
The Bible here says stuff happens. In faith and recovery, we have to deal with this reality. In recovery, we build a structure to carry us thru the trials of life. In faith, we bring perspective to help us cope with life stuff. Here you see the values and limitations of each approach. Recovery is the right now approach. We get tools to get thru today and stuff. Spiritually you get a menu of spiritual choices without any idea of the consequences of the choices. Morality is from group conscience. This is certainly more comfortable in the short term. But like Solomon, there is a price. We lose the God channel. And only get the man channel. This works if the man channel is readable. But unfortunately, it is not. In recovery, the spiritual channel is as you understand it. ie what I want I get. Soloman got what he wanted at a price.
The God channel in the bible is reliable but uncomfortable. In recovery, the spiritual channel is a star wars bar scene with every lizard or wizard in the universe. I think a wonderful counterbalance for recovery people is the daily discipline of bible study. But recovery people have to understand the bible has a point of view and a voice. I would suggest it never hurts to have a consistent independent point of view as a counterbalance. I will over the next blog and podcasts illustrate this God channel in the bible. This voice can tell some of the differences between faith and recovery.
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