Thursday the 7th

Ecclesiastes 4: 7-11

 ⁷ Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:  ⁸ There was a man all alone;  he had neither son nor brother.  There was no end to his toil,  yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. "For whom am I toiling," he asked, "and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?"  This too is meaningless— a miserable business!  ⁹ Two are better than one,  because they have a good return for their work:  ¹⁰ If one falls down, his friend can help him up.
 But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!  ¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.  But how can one keep warm alone?  ¹² Though one may be overpowered,  two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

I take two meanings away from this scripture one physical, and one spiritual. First in Genesis 2:18 God establishes that we are not to wander this world alone. God goes as far as to say “it is not good for man to be alone”. Remember that after each thing God created He said it was good. For Him to point out that man being alone is not good…..well that is a point we should all take notice of. We are not meant to go through life alone. As the saying goes no man is an island. Yet many people try to do just that. They want to hold on to what they have, and not share it, or they are scared of getting hurt, maybe it is as simple as they just do not want to invest the time. God puts people in our lives at the times we need them. They are our angels that walk among us. They are our spouses, our friends, our co-workers. These people help us. They get us through rough times, they warn us of impending danger, they share our joys, our accomplishments, and our tragic failures. As Solomon points out a cord of three is hard to break.  I see the same meaning in our relationship with the Lord. We are told in Deuteronomy 31, reminded in Joshua 1, in Psalms 9, 37, and 34,  and Paul makes the point again in Hebrews 13. God will never leave us, He will never forsake us. Here again, we are not meant to take this world on alone. The God who loves us so much that He gave His only Son, will always be by our side. With the three strands of cord, made up of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we find a lifeline that will sustain us through any storm. Yet it is up to us to take hold of that lifeline. Just like with our friends, many people choose to go it alone. They are fooled into thinking that they are strong enough to take on this cold world all by themselves; this could not be further from the truth. Without the Lord in our lives, we toil for ourselves, and that will not bear fruit that will last,  when we stumble and fall spiritually there is no one there to help us up, when we close our eyes at night we have no way to keep our soul, our inner core warm without the Holy Trinity, and of course without that three strand cord, we are defeated before we start. In our relationships and in our faith, we are not meant to be alone. We are to be more than conquers, we are to be victorious! We are meant to do that with the help of the friends that God brings into our lives, and with the Holy Trinity secured tightly to our souls!   Where do you find yourself today? Will you accept the blessings that the Lord has brought to your door? Take the time to nurture your relationships, while they can be trying at times, it is the bonds of those same relationships that will help you through the hard times here on Earth. How about your soul? How is it faring these days? Is it colder than it should be? Reach out to the Lord, allow Him to fully enter your life, you will be amazed at the warmth, the peace, the joy, the love, and the security that you will receive.

 

Peace,

Brian