Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Last Wednesday, we looked at the fact that God makes much of us, his children. He really does make much of us. Why does he make much of us? He makes much of us because he is glorifying himself by redeeming us. In APJ 1772, we looked at that point in detail.

But in that same sermon, we get another point added, a follow up, and one essential to the overall argument Pastor John is making. It’s worth reflecting on here on the podcast, because Pastor John knows that, for many people, to hear that they were saved so that God would glorify himself in us seems to take away some of the luster of that love. Pastor John will directly push back against that point a little later. He’ll answer that question and concern, and show clearly why it’s not less loving for God to love us for himself.

But before we get there, Pastor John wants to simply dwell on this previously stated fact: if you are God’s blood-bought child, God makes much of you. He does. He really does. In fact, he makes more of you and more of me than we could ever dare imagine. Here’s the biblical proof he was eager to share with his church, and this is what he told them.

So that’s what I meant when I said, “Why does the Bible relentlessly reveal the love of God for us in a way that constantly calls attention to the fact that it is done for his glory?” Because so many people, when they hear that, feel it as not loving. The point of those texts throughout the Bible, where God performs his love for us for his glory, is to show that he loves us in the greatest possible way.

Dwelling on God’s Love

Why? How does that show that it’s a greater love? How is it a greater love when he loves me for his glory than if he just loved me and it all terminated on me? Well, before I answer that question — and I will answer it — let me dwell with you on the truth that evidently some have assumed I denied in asking, “Do you feel more loved by God when he makes much of you, or do you feel more loved by God when he frees you at the cost of his Son to enjoy making much of him forever?”

It’s been assumed by some, “Oh, you don’t think he makes much of us.” Well, that’s a non sequitur; it doesn’t follow from what I said. But I don’t want to defend myself. Some have gotten that idea, and I would like to now fix it and keep fixing it. If I get things imbalanced, I’d like to get them back into balance.

Seven Ways God Makes Much of Us

So here we are trying to help those who heard it that way. The answer is yes, God makes more of you than you could ever imagine. And I will blow you away for the next five minutes. Put your seatbelt on if you have trouble with being made much of by God, because you might leave otherwise. I think I have seven of these, and they will go by quickly.

1. God is pleased with us.

God makes much of us by being pleased with us and commending our lives. Alan Jacobs wrote a great biography of C.S. Lewis, and he says in C.S. Lewis’s biography that the greatest sermon that C.S. Lewis ever preached was called “The Weight of Glory.” That is, believers will one day have a weight of glory that will be so heavy they will imagine, “I don’t know if I can bear this. It’s so good.”

What do you think the weight of glory was in that sermon? It was the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And here’s what Lewis said:

To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in his son — it seems impossible, a weight or a burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. (39)

And he’s right. That’s number one. God makes much of us by being pleased with us, making us an ingredient in the divine happiness, like an artist with something he painted or like a father with a son.

2. God makes us fellow heirs with Christ.

God makes much of us by making us fellow heirs with his Son, who owns everything. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). I wonder if you believe that. I do. Mine! I don’t need it now, therefore. I don’t need it now. I don’t need to scrounge to get a piece of earth for about fifty years and then maybe lose everything.

I am very happy to belong to King Jesus — to be a fellow heir of Jesus Christ, who owns the universe, and get my globe at death (or maybe at the resurrection). And I won’t mind sharing it with you. And if that’s a problem, he’ll make another globe. In fact, he won’t have to make another globe. They’re out there. So you get Quasar 10, which is probably greener. “The promise to Abraham and his offspring [is] that he would be heir of the world” (Romans 4:13). Are you an heir of Abraham? You indeed are an heir. In Christ, we are Abraham’s offspring, and Abraham was promised the world.

“In Christ, we are Abraham’s offspring, and Abraham was promised the world.”

One more, 1 Corinthians 3:21–22 (this is the best of all, probably): “So let no one boast in men.” He’s trying to help Bethlehem not boast — boast in pastors, boast in elders, boast in buildings, boast in anything. “Let no one boast in men. For [here’s the argument] all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” What an argument. These ragtag Corinthians are being told, “Would you stop saying, ‘I’m of Paul,’ ‘I’m of Cephas,’ and realize you own everything?” It’s just a matter of time. A very short time.

3. God promises to serve us.

God makes much of us by having us sit at table when he returns, and serving us as though he were the slave and we are the masters. This is the parable of the second coming that is the most unbelievable. It’s Luke 12. I’ll just read you Luke 12:37. He’s describing the second coming, and he says, “Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have [us] recline at table, and he will come and serve [us].” What will it take to make you feel made much of? I used to think until I saw that parable that he did that on the earth: Last Supper, bound a towel, washed their feet — that’s an incarnation action. But now, name above every name, he’s coming on a white horse, sword out of his mouth, slaying his enemies, making everybody serve him at table.

And that’s not what it says. He will never cease to be our servant. We will tremble. We will say what Peter said: “You can’t wash my feet! Get your towel off. Sit down.” And he will say — no, he won’t. I want to say that he’ll say, “Get behind me, Satan.” But I think probably at that point, we will be sanctified enough that we won’t be satanic like Peter was. So there we are, sitting at table shortly, with Jesus serving us.

4. God appoints us to judge angels.

God makes much of us by appointing us to carry out judgment of angels. “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:3). You can take a deep breath and say, “Well, I don’t think I could do that.” You will. You will.

5. God rejoices over us.

God makes much of us by ascribing value to us and rejoicing over us as his treasured possession. Consider two verses.

Matthew 10:29–30: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father? Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” “I attend to the minutest detail of a sparrow’s life. You don’t compare. You are, I would say, infinitely more valuable than a bird. So don’t worry. I’ve got your back. I won’t let anything happen that’s not for your good. I love you. I value you. You’re coming home. I decided this before the foundation of the world.”

I said there were two verses there. I said, “values you and sings over you, rejoices over you.” This is Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God . . . will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” You ever heard God sing? I haven’t. I suppose Jesus sang a hymn when he went out into the garden. When everybody else sang, he didn’t sit there quiet. But when God sings, universes come into being. God’s going to sing, and it’s going to be a sound like you’ve never heard over you, over the blood-bought bride of his Son. He will lead the song at the wedding feast.

6. God will make us shine like the sun.

God makes much of us by giving us a glorious body like Jesus’s resurrection body. “[He] will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21). But here’s the one that has captured me for all the years since I saw it — in the parable in Matthew 13:43: “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Remember seeing Jesus in Revelation 1? Hair white like snow, girded with a brass belt of truth, just pillars for legs. And his face, it says, “was like the sun shining” (Revelation 1:16). And John was on his face. So will you.

We would not be able to look at each other in the resurrection unless God had given us new spiritual resurrection eyes. We will be so bright. No more wheelchairs, no more depression, no more fallen countenances, no more discouragement, no more disease, no more alienation — everything new, and your face shining like the sun. So, as C.S. Lewis said, we would be tempted to bow down and worship each other if God hadn’t given us eyes and a heart to know better.

7. God will rule the world through us.

Most amazingly, I think (maybe not), God makes much of us by granting us to sit with Christ on his throne. Revelation 3:21: “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” I don’t know what to do with that.

“Everywhere the Father extends his rule in the universe, he will do it through you.”

So, I’ll try. Maybe Ephesians 1:23 helps: “[The church] is [Christ’s] body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” We’re going to sit on the throne of God with Jesus, because the thrones merge. We’re on Jesus’s throne; he sits on the Father’s throne; now we’re all on the same throne. God, the Son, and us sitting on the throne of the universe. If I put those two texts together, I think it means something like this: everywhere the Father extends his rule in the universe, he will do it through you.

God created the world, you, for a reason, and it isn’t to throw you away at the end. It’s so that you would fulfill what he gave you to do in the beginning — namely, to be a governor of the universe: subdue it, multiply, fill it, enjoy it, make something of it. “Now I’ve made you new, I’ll make the world new. Now get about it, and any place I stick my hand to rule, I’m ruling through people.” He’s going through people.

So, let it be known loud and clear: God makes much of us. God makes much of his Son’s bride. God loves his church with a kind of love that will make more of her because he makes much of her for his glory.

Growing up, our high school held a morning assembly where the senior pupils read the Scriptures to the entire school. It was on such an occasion that one of my friends stood up to read and announced solemnly, “The reading this morning is from the Gospel according to Isaiah.” My heart sank: “O Hugh, you know Isaiah’s not a Gospel; it’s a prophecy!”

Of course, I was technically right; but later I couldn’t help reflecting on my friend’s unintentional insight. He had indeed read from the gospel according to Isaiah, just as again, this Christmastime, in hundreds of thousands — indeed, millions — of churches around the world, the gospel according to Isaiah will be read, and in a multitude of concert halls where Handel’s Messiah will be performed, the words of Isaiah 9:6 will be sung:

For to us a child is born;     to us a son is given;and the government shall be upon his shoulder;     and his name shall be calledWonderful Counselor, Mighty God,     Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

To Us a Child Is Born

Isaiah may not have known the place and time of arrival, far less the specific identity of the coming Messiah; but according to John he saw Christ’s glory (John 12:37–41). And certainly Isaiah 9 is a glorious description of him.

The majestic words of Isaiah 9:6 bring a royal birth notice: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given.” On this king’s shoulders, the government will rest. But the details of the proclamation are as arresting as the later angelic announcement of Jesus’s birth to the shepherds (Luke 2:10–12). Indeed, the latter seems to echo the former. This child is born not to Mary and Joseph, although indeed they are his parents and guardians. There is something unique about him. True, he was born of Mary, but as a King who comes to rule, and as a Savior who comes to deliver, he is born to us: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given.”

But that is just the beginning of the wonders in Isaiah 9:6. They run through the four titles this child will possess: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Wonderful Counselor

The child is to be a “Wonderful Counselor.” That title is often — perhaps usually — understood to mean that the prophesied Christ will be a wonderful counselor to his people. While he is that, some interpreters (like John Owen) have seen a deeper significance in the words and applied them to what theologians have variously called the “counsel of redemption,” or the pactum salutis (the “covenant of peace”), or the “covenant of redemption” between the Father and the Son — the grand plan to redeem us. Thus, the answer to Paul’s question in Romans 11:34, “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” is not “nobody” but “his own dearly beloved Son”!

Yes, the Father sent the Son into the world to be our Savior — but not without or apart from the willing counsel of his Son. Is it too great a stretch to think that before Isaiah answered the heavenly question — “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” — it had already been answered by the Son, saying, “My Father, here is my counsel: Here I am! Send me”?

This “counsel of redemption” refers to God’s eternity, and we are capable of thinking of it only in time-bound terms. But marvel at this: the One who comes to be the Wonderful Counselor to us is One who has participated in the counsels of eternity. He was everlastingly the Wisdom of God, but he “became to us wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Since this is the case, let us never doubt this: no matter how deep our perplexity or how mysterious his providence, the counsel given to us by the One who stands in the counsels of God is perfect. For our sake, he took “the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3) and in it “increased in wisdom . . . and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52) and also “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). No wonder the voice from heaven commends him: “This is my Son . . . listen to him!” (Luke 9:35).

If the Babe born in Bethlehem is the One by whose wisdom the world was created, and through whom and to whom providence is directed, salvation planned, redemption accomplished, and the wisdom of God displayed to principalities and powers, then two implications follow: (1) Saturate your mind and heart in the counsel he gives in his word. (2) Trust this Wonderful Counselor absolutely.

Mighty God

The Messianic Counselor is also “Mighty God.” Too many interpreters have resisted the obvious here — that the child described is clearly a divine person — and have tried to argue that Isaiah’s language is better translated as “God-like Hero.” But apart from other considerations, the same title is used of Yahweh himself in the next chapter (Isaiah 10:21).

Still, the divine Messiah is also heroic, and he does act in heroic ways. This is surely a suggestive line of thought for us today. We live in a world of idols — sports idols, pop idols, and now chiefly the idol Martin Luther said he feared more than the pope and all his cardinals: “the Great Pope Self.” In a world given over to such idolatry, young people need to divert their gaze to heroes whose faith they may follow with joy. Yes, the Lord Jesus is more than any human hero, but he is also our ultimate hero — truly a hero of a God!

In what heroic activities he engages! He is the Divine Voyager who in the incarnation traverses the vast gulf between eternity and time on his mission of salvation. He is the Divine Warrior who is attacked as an infant by Herod, that vile instrument of Satan, but who then enters the lists against his enemy in the wilderness and defeats him. He is the Divine Healer who conquers blindness, lameness, deafness, and dumbness. He is the Divine Life-Giver whose voice the dead hear and live. He is the Divine Lover who shows love to the loveless, the unlovely, and the unlovable. He is the Divine Self-Sacrificer who offers himself on the cross for our sakes. He is the Divine General who leads a host of captives as he ascends in his triumph, and who in the sheer generosity of his grace now shares the spoils of his victory with his people. This is Christ, the mighty Hero-God.

Everlasting Father

Isaiah also sees that the coming Messiah is the “Everlasting Father.” Perhaps this description makes us hesitate a little and even question how this can be an authentic prophecy of the coming Messiah. How does this fit? After all, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, not the Father.

We need have no hesitation here. In fact, Isaiah has already prepared us for what at first sight may seem to be so paradoxical. He has already told us that “to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” He sees no contradiction, no tension here. And the reason is straightforward. Neither son nor father is all the Messiah is, or only what he is. I have been a son, but I am also a father. This Son is likewise the father of all whom he brings to birth in his kingdom.

If Paul could say to the Corinthians, “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15), then surely the same may be said of the One who commissioned him. So in these titles, the Divine Messiah is viewed not only in relation to his role in the Trinity (where he is Son and not Father), but in relation to us as the Suffering Servant, of whom Isaiah later says, “He shall see his offspring” (Isaiah 53:10). We have been brought to new life through him. He is the only-begotten Son who begets us by his Spirit. We are the children who have been given to him (Hebrews 2:13).

“In Christ, we find a new father, a true father, and what is more, an everlasting father.”

At Christmastime, it may be especially important for some of us to grasp this. We traditionally think of Christmas as a family time. But by no means do all of us have good memories of Christmas at home, or of family life, or of our father. But in Christ, we find a new father, a true father, and what is more, an everlasting father. He will never cease to be that to us! If father is a term that gives us little pleasure, then let us remember Philip’s request to our Lord: “Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Then let us embrace his words: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8–9).

To Jesus, then, we must look to dissipate all unhappy thoughts of father; and we must keep looking, keep pressing in, until we have absorbed the constancy of the love of Jesus in whom the love of the Father for us is seen. In coming to him — as a lady once memorably told me — we discover for the first time in our lives that we are really loved.

Prince of Peace

Finally in this fourfold Name, the Messiah is called “Prince of Peace.” Here we seem to be on familiar Christmas territory. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,” chanted the heavenly host (Luke 2:14), echoing again the words penned by Isaiah: “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7).

But Isaiah could already sense that this peace would be hard won. There would be light instead of darkness, an increase of joy, and a share in the spoils of victory only when “the yoke of . . . burden and the staff . . . and the rod of [the] oppressor” would be “broken as on the day of Midian” (Isaiah 9:4). Enough time for Isaiah to pen another forty-four chapters would pass before he would be able to peer through the mists of future history to see a clearer picture of the Messiah, and to understand that this promised child would grow to be “pierced for our transgressions . . . crushed for our iniquities,” so that “upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace” (Isaiah 53:5).

“Our shalom would be at the expense of his dispeace; our reconciliation is found only in his alienation.”

Our shalom would be at the expense of his dispeace; our reconciliation is found only in his alienation; hostilities have ceased between God and man only because he himself bore the cause of them, our sin, in his own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24), and there became to the full “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

All We Will Ever Need

Let us, therefore, embrace Jesus Christ this Christmas as we find him described in these four titles. For these names represent a full salvation. In the Wonderful Counselor, there is wisdom for us in our ignorance and folly; in the Mighty God, strength for us in our sinful weakness; in the Everlasting Father, a heart standing open to welcome us home; in the Prince of Peace, a shalom that comes only through his sacrifice.

Before he came, Isaiah knew that he would be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Now that he has come, we know where and when he came and who he really was and is. For we know that he is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Nor is that a long-form way of saying that Jesus is eternal. Rather, it tells us that today he is exactly what he was, and everything that he was “in the days of his flesh” (Hebrews 5:7). He is still the same Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. You have no reason to mistrust him; you have every reason to believe that he is all you will ever need.

There could be no greater Christmas present than receiving him. There is no greater present you could give to him than yourself.

What do we do when life just doesn’t make sense? Illness strikes. A job is lost. Friendships fade. Uncertainty looms. Whether the gray-haired saint facing cancer or the college student burdened by the pressures of the future, crisis and suffering have a way of shaking even the most confident Christian.

We may know that God is in control of all things at all times in all places, yet we often feel frustrated because we don’t understand what he is up to. So what do we do when life doesn’t make sense?

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes asked a similar question. Often, when someone mentions Ecclesiastes, we can think, “Whoa — he was a downer.” In reality, though, Ecclesiastes does not push the depressed over the edge, but rather gives the frustrated a foothold of joy in our puzzling world. The Preacher declares a simple message of hope for the struggling: enjoy life by fearing God even when you cannot understand his works and ways.

God Weaves All Things Together

When we do not understand why life is the way it is, the Preacher would have us be certain that God orchestrates all its changing seasons.

Everything has its time: “A time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2). The Preacher poetically introduces his subject by using birth and death to encapsulate all things in life. All things — the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between — occur according to an appointed time. In his words, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Who appoints this timing? The Preacher does not leave us wondering for long: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Just as beauty befits a lover (Song of Solomon 1:8, 15; 2:10), so God works all things together in a fitting, beautiful way according to his will. He is the artist; all of life is his mosaic. He is the great weaver who threads all things together to form an exquisite tapestry. Perhaps we know what passage Paul meditated on as he wrote, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

Mystery from Beginning to End

Yet even with confidence in the sovereign rule of God over all things at all times in all places, the Preacher recognizes his own inability to understand. He writes, “Also, [God] has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In context, “eternity” parallels “what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Humanity has a God-given desire to comprehend “what God has done from the beginning to the end,” but God placed this desire in our hearts in such a way that we “cannot find out” what he has done. As Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) writes, “For all eternity he put in men’s hearts the fact that they might never discover what God has done from the beginning right to the end” (Homilies on Ecclesiastes, 79).

Naturally, as we arrive at the intersection of our finiteness and God’s infinity, we leave frustrated. The Preacher writes, “What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with” (Ecclesiastes 3:9–10). His question implies a negative answer: none. The worker has no gain from his toil.

What toil? In general, the activities noted in Ecclesiastes 3:2–8 constitute our toil through life, but Ecclesiastes 8:17 also reveals a specific piece of our struggle: “Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out.” No matter how hard we try, we cannot make sense of God’s works and ways.

“God’s works and ways make sense — beautiful, wise, and fitting sense — just not always to us.”

At the very least, we should consider reframing the original question. Instead of asking, “What do we do when life doesn’t make sense?” we might ask, “What do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us?” God works all things together according to his wisdom, but we do not have the capacity to understand all he does. God’s works and ways make sense — beautiful, wise, and fitting sense — just not always to us. Isaiah would not be surprised by this conclusion: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).

Fear Before Him

So what do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us?

The Preacher does not leave us alone to suffer in nihilistic resignation: “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

God is not merely playing with his creation because he wants to have some fun at our expense. He has not created a world with no meaning, leaving humans to wander through life without hope of understanding. Instead, God designed us to desire infinite knowledge so that we would fear him.

To fear God means to remember who God is and to remember who we are in relationship (and outside of relationship) with him. We remind ourselves of God’s sovereign control of all things in life, humbly accepting our own inability to always understand his ways. At the same time, we can do so with joy because we know that God works all things together beautifully for our good.

Like Job in the face of great calamity, we ask, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). We look uncertainty and tragedy in the eye, as painful as it may be, and by his grace declare, “Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Embrace the Life You Can See

We do not stop at fear, though. Rightly fearing God starts the process, but God wants more. The Preacher writes, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil — this is God’s gift to man” (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13). Don’t read the Preacher’s words as some sort of carpe diem motto that urges us to make the most of life while we can. Even when we cannot understand God’s work or ways, he wants us to enjoy life — every season of it — within the context of a holy fear.

In his book Things of Earth, Joe Rigney urges Christians to “embrace your creatureliness. Don’t seek to be God. Instead, embrace the glorious limitations and boundaries that God has placed on you as a character in his story” (234). Rigney’s exhortation hits at the core of Ecclesiastes 3: rightly fearing God and enjoying his world. To fear God rightly is to remember our humanity. When we can’t see around the dark corner of life yet to come, no matter how much we want to, we remember our humanity. We remember that God is God, and we are not. He controls all things at all times at all places, and he is good.

“God is God, and we are not. He controls all things at all times at all places, and he is good.”

So, we ask God for the grace to embrace the life we can see — the life he has given to us — and to enjoy it fully. Breathe deeply the cool air of a fall morning as you walk the dog. Slowly sip hot chocolate with your children. Work hard at the temp job as you await a permanent position. Let your hand linger with your ailing loved one. Even when we do not understand God’s works and ways, we can delight in his good gifts to us. We can find a unique pleasure in our toil as we throw ourselves upon our rock, Jesus Christ, through the storms of life.

Jason DeRouchie ably summarizes the tension between finitude, infinity, frustration, and joy: “This is the goal of Ecclesiastes: that believers feeling the weight of the curse and the burden of life’s enigmas would turn their eyes toward God, resting in his purposes and delighting whenever possible in his beautiful, disfigured world” (“Shepherding Wind and One Wise Shepherd,” 15).

Do Good Like God

After inviting us to enjoy the life God has given, the Preacher adds one more dimension to our well-being: “There is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live” (Ecclesiastes 3:12). When we embrace our finiteness and enjoy God and his gifts to us, we ultimately live like God by doing good to others. We soak up the joy of the life he has given to us, and then we channel that joy to others.

So, what do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us? We face all things — the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between — with confidence because we know our God is weaving all things together for good, even when we cannot see past our current circumstances. We walk hand in hand with our Savior on the path of life, enjoying all his gifts, big and small. And then we do good to others by inviting them to do the same.