Forged By Faith

Ecclesiastes 7:3 KJV The best for last For such is simply where ‘tis best saved all so that better might be known along the way. Because that is the true purpose of this path both in but through this place. It’s one we take upon which we feel what are all these things that cause our brains to endure this strain of trying to make this life make sense. And indeed, it is this, this journey called life as is so often met with strife and stress and the sum of the mess we’ve made and will make that makes us hopefully better people for having learned however we can to have lowered ourselves to the seeing of the value, the sheer worth of what is this gift. Because, well, what is this gift? What is this life? What is this ride? Why’ve we this time in this place at this point? Yes, what’s the point of all this? Why does life bring both sorrow and joy? Why must there be both happiness and misery? Why can’t we all just enjoy endless enjoyment? Because what would anything mean if we knew it all the...

Ecclesiastes 1:18 NIV The depression in progression Perhaps it’s something that only those who fail to progress properly are promised to find as they feel their mind both grow and slow as they come to know what is the more they’ll only come to wish they didn’t. And indeed, I believe that all of us have experienced that feeling, that reeling in which we’re standing there seeing something that we’ve just recently learned more about only become something we’re unsure about because of what we’ve learned about it. Wishing that we didn’t know now what we hadn’t known before. And it’s an altogether odd experience to experience, this realization that you’ve learned something that you both wish you didn’t have to know but also know you can’t unknow. Because that there is no way to unsee something, to unfeel some way, to take back the prior ignorance you had, it leaves you with a burden you can’t escape. It doesn’t go away. That’s why God asked them to stay away from that tree. It’s because know...

Ecclesiastes 1:17 NIV The search continues… For such is what a search is meant to do. We all undertake any search in which we search for whatever it is that we thus apparently feel the need to search with the often hope-filled expectation of finding whatever it is that we’ve determined is worth looking for. Nobody, or I guess I should say I assume that nobody, ever agrees to do much if anything of anything without their having a strong reason or excuse, or I suppose even alibi, already firmly in place and well established beforehand in regard to why they’re going to do whatever it is that they’re planning to and, too, the overall outcome for whatever this undertaking will hopefully become. And, well, when the undertaking is a journey taken from the madness of man toward the wisdom of God, you’d think we’d understand that a lot is going to happen, going to change, going to probably confuse and thus ask we lose what are our preconceived notions about whatever it is that we think that any...

Ecclesiastes 1:16 NIV The emptiness of everything This world manages to offer each of us so very much that the sum of it all seems daily overwhelming. For we start this journey as but children who’ve still their ability to believe in those things which exist outside of what age tells us are possible. And as we grow in a world filled with so much to know, so much to see, so much have and hold and hope to be we don’t feel that ability to believe in more slip away. Why? Because it’s replaced by a way of life in which we don’t need it as, again, there’s here so much around us that doesn’t ask that we believe in it. It’s all just there. We can see it. We can feel it. We can hear it and hold it and hopefully even come to have it. And this idea that we can have rather than continuing having to hope becomes to us as we get old the wiser pursuit. After all, why endure the wonder and worry of what is every belief when you can settle far easier for all that you can see? (Wonder because all belief...