We are in the penultimate chapter of Ecclesiastes and man, it’sbeen a ride. What an amazing book God has preserved for us!

Solomon has given us a lot of help in this book.

He’s helped us come to grips with the vapor-like nature of life.He’s helped us to see that God’s gifts are meant to be enjoyed butwere never designed to ultimately fulfill.He’s helped us appreciate the value of wisdom.

The book of Ecclesiastes has functioned as a mirror to help us seeGod, ourselves, and reality more clearly. All of his insights mightcome under the heading of perspective. The wisdom of Ecclesiasteshas changed us by giving us a new perspective. Perspectivechanges everything.

Depending on your perspective, the exact same circumstance canelicit opposite responses in people. To illustrate this, I worked threeseasons for an initial attack crew fighting wildfires in Idaho. The goal

of firefighters, of course, is to put out fires because they areincredibly destructive. But I very quickly realized there is asecondary goal that is hidden beneath the stated goal, namely, haveas much fun as possible in the process.

I discovered this through a conversation I had in my first seasonwhere I remember asking a buddy about how the fires were theprevious year. He said, “Man last year was a really great fireseason.” So not very many fires? “No, we had the most fires wehave ever had in a season. It was amazing!” Here’s the dirty truth.Every firefighter is a clinically ill pyromaniac. The bigger the fire, thebetter. The more fires, the better.

So a good fire season for a firefighter is a season with tons of giantfires, retardant drops, and lots of action. It all depends on theperspective.

Is a car accident a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on if youare the driver or a body repair shop.Is winning the million-dollar prize on Albertson’s Monopoly game agood thing or bad thing? It depends on if you are the ticket holder orthe company that has to payout.

Or to illustrate this visually.

Would you rather be stuck on a boat or an island? It all depends onperspective.

And here’s the thing about perspective. We all have one. We allstart somewhere in our view of the world. None of us are unbiased,

objective, all-seeing viewers. We view the world from a fixedlocation.

When you ask me, what do you think of New York City, I come atthat question from the perspective of someone who grew up inBoise.When you ask me, what do you think of the LDS community, Icome at that question from someone who is deeply embedded inthe Christian community.When you ask me, what do you think of racism? I come at thatquestion from someone who was born a white male.

None of this needs an apology. How could it be otherwise? We lookat life through a set of lenses. We all have a perspective that shapesour view of the world. Well, today Solomon wants to change yourperspective not because your perspective is necessarily bad, it’s justwoefully incomplete.

How do you change your perspective? You have to change whereyou stand! Changing perspective means moving to a differentlocation. So where do we need to stand to view life correctly?

So here’s the first perspective change we need.

This expression is a pretty hard metaphor to understand. I picture inmy mind someone throwing out a loaf of Wonderbread and then acouple weeks later, back floats this soggy mess. Yum.

There are a few ancient Jewish commentaries that make mention ofthis proverb and provide a little bit of help. Most likely this is areference to the risk associated with sending a commodity like wheator bread over the sea. The sea is a risk/reward proposition. In thatpart of the world, the Mediterranean Sea was the international tradehighway. So if you lived in Israel and you wanted to trade withGreece, the only practical way to do that was by boat. If you wantedto trade you’d have to “cast your bread upon the waters.” And thatact intrinsically has risk associated with it. Maybe you have an entireseason’s worth of grain on board a ship. You have no radar orsatellite imagery telling you if there is weather on the way. It’s a veryreal possibility that your boat, along with its precious cargo, could getcaught up in a storm and sink to the bottom. If it sinks, you areruined. There’s no cargo insurance or business backup stimulusplan. If it sinks, you are done. So what should you do? Play it safe?Risk it all.

No, the advice is simple. Cast your bread upon the waters. Yes,there’s a risk. Sure, it could sink. But why let that stop you? Don’t letthe risk stop you. You have no way of getting paid for your breadunless you embrace that risk. So no use fretting, just send it.Because after all, you have no choice and you have no control. Thedecision itself is quite easy.

But here’s the decision point. Before you do, why not be totallygenerous with what you have right now because you may lose it all.

Ask yourself this question. Given the choice between losing all mymoney at sea in a freak storm or giving that same amount of moneyto my family, or friends, or church which would you choose?

Well, I think anyone would say, “Of course I would rather give it to

someone I loved rather than give it to that monstrous sea. At leastsomeone would get it!”

Solomon says, when you invest money, you accept the risk that youmight lose it. Don’t be paralyzed by that risk. Cast your bread uponthe water. But before you make that risk assessment, I want you tofactor in one more thing. Don’t forget that you also risk the possibilityof ever being generous with that money. Your ship may never comein.

Given the choice between uncertain gain and certain generosity,choose to be generous with at least some of it now. It’s not sayingyou have to give it all. No, investments are wise. “Give a portion toseven or eight.” That seven or eight is just an expression that meansmany. Give generously to many because you don’t know whatdisaster might come.

We no longer cast our bread upon the water. But we cast our cashinto the market. Life is like loading up a boat with investments thatwe throw into all these different investment mechanisms (homes,401k, Roth IRA, rentals). But that ship could go down at anymoment. Life is full of risk. That’s actually okay. You have to risk ifyou want the reward. That has always been part of the equation.

But within your risk, don’t forget to be generous. Factor generosityinto risk. Don’t always be forestalling generosity because chanceand misfortune might take it all before you have a chance to givegenerously. And that would be sad.

Let’s say hypothetically speaking that you invested in the stockmarket and you had quite a few eggs in that basket. Andhypothetically, some pandemic sweeps the globe and the market

massively crashed.

If you invested in that way, yes you lost your future returns, butworse, you lost your opportunity to be generous with those presentassets. Solomon’s wisdom says to be generous with a portion of themoney you have today before you invest. You can’t be certain ofgenerosity with future returns on investments.

You shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch. You alsoshouldn’t count on giving chickens before they hatch.

So what’s the application. Be generous today and experience thereward of that generosity. God intends you to be joyful in yourgenerosity. Would you rather have to give it all away or have it alltaken from you?

Flip it around. Imagine a scenario where the stock market was onthe rise. You looked out over that sea of risk and all you saw wassmooth sailing. And you said, “You know, that investment looksmore certain than the rising sun, but you know what, I’m not going toinvest at all. I’m going to give half of it away.” And you give wisely tothe Lord in various ways. But, everyone else is all in. The harbor isempty because everyone is reading the sea the same way you do.Low risk. High return. Red sky at night is the sailor’s delight. Buteveryone misread the market. The sea was hiding its true intentionsand it begins to rage. And the storm is one of the worst that theregion had ever seen. Every ship sank. You lost half yourinvestment while everyone else lost everything. Would you not havegreat joy that you diversified in the present joy of giving?

Listen, we are all susceptible to self-delusion. We all stand beforecalm investment seas with unrealistic optimism. We always think,

man, that’s a no brainer. I’ll invest today and tomorrow I’ll give someaway. But there’s always a risk. Don’t lie to yourself that tomorrowyou’ll give.

Generosity is always something you do today, not tomorrow.People who are generous today are people who were generousyesterday.People who are generous today will be even more generoustomorrow.

Second Corinthians 9 has some wise words,

Graveyards are filled with people who intended to be generous.Change your perspective. Stand by the sea. Look out at theunknown. Stare risk in the face. Stare at the uncertain, unknownfuture. It could be smooth sailing. In a moment, storm clouds couldroll in and your fortunes could reverse. Look at the storms, the risk.Don’t let the fear of the unknown stop you from investing in thefuture. But do let the fear of the unknown cause you to invest in the

present.

If we want a healthy perspective on life, we are going to need moreperspective still. We went and looked at the sea of risk. But we needmore. If we want a healthy perspective on life, we are going to haveto turn from the sea, move inland, and stand in a forest. We aregoing to have to stand there for a long time and simply observe oursurroundings. And if we do that long enough, here’s what we willdiscover.

What is he pointing out? He’s pointing out two simultaneousrealities.

There are patterns to life (like weather)There is a randomness to life (like falling trees)There are things you can predict and things you cannot.

We can look at the clouds and predict rain. The absence of cloudsmeans no rain. That’s why after all, we send our ships out to sea incalm weather because we’ve seen the pattern repeated so manytimes. There is a predictability to life. Some things we can predictwith high levels of certainty. The sun will rise tomorrow. That’s prettycertain. Summer is coming. People will be born. People will die.

But other things we can never know. Which way will this tree fall?We can’t know. Even if it’s leaning this way, who’s to say that whatfinally takes it down is a forest fire or a violent storm or a mudslidethat pushes it the other way?

What will the weather be like on my birthday this year? Who knows.What will be in the news in January of 2021? What’s the NCAAwinning bracket going to look like in 2021?

There are patterns in life. And there is randomness in life.

Depending on how you are wired, you probably tend to look at theworld more one way or the other.

Some see patterns. These are the processes and cycles that exist inthe world and because they are predictable, they can be leveraged.The markets rise and fall but generally rise in this predictable way,and if I tap into that I’ll get these results. Human behavior can bepredicted in this manner. Artificial intelligence can help me tap intothe predictability of human behavior and I can leverage that to myadvantage. The clouds mean rain and rains mean crops and sopeople are driven to capitalize on these predictable cycles.

Some people only see randomness, risk, and the potential forfailure. The tree could fall north or south with irreversibleconsequences. We may be invaded by a foreign power. The marketmight collapse or go into hyperinflation. With so much uncertaintywe need to lock down, hedge against loss, protect our assets, andsecure our borders. Fearful of loss, these don’t do anything risky

People are either paralyzed by fear of the unknown or hypnotized byfuture success. Both of these perspectives are incorrect. Don’t lookat the wind and clouds and try to predict the future because you’llnever live. Verse 4 says, “He who observes the wind will not sow,and he who regards the clouds will not reap.”

We can be incapacitated by visions of a predictable future or an

unpredictable future. Either way, you’ll die having never lived. Liveright now.

I think almost everyone in the room would agree that one of theworst things that can happen to you is that you would die. I don’tthink Solomon agrees with that. What if that wasn’t true? Whatdifference would it make in your life if you believed that there wereworse things than dying? Change where you stand. It’s a matter ofperspective. Every man dies but not every man truly lives. EE.Cummings said, “Being undead isn’t being alive.”

What if instead of trying to predict the future or fearing theunpredictable, you just lived right now in the present? What ifinstead of vicariously living through other people’s experiences viamedia, you personally experienced those things?

I love life. I want to live life to the hilt. Do you really know what lifefeels like? We all exist in life, but have you felt what it is like to trulylive?

Do you know what it’s like to play the violin or drums or saxophone?Do you know what it feels like to sky-dive, bungee jump, or cliffdive?Do you know what it feels like to compete in an event, run a 5k, 10k,marathon?Do you know what it feels like to try and develop your own productand fail or succeed at that?Do you know what it feels like to camp in the middle of nowhere byyourself, backpack in the Sawtooths, explore the Frank ChurchWilderness, or the Snake River Gorge?Do you know what it’s like to go on a fast for five days or a mediafast for six months?Do you know what it feels like to run a rapid, surf a wave, snorkel,or scuba dive?

Do you know what it’s like to raise goats, milk cows, collect eggsfrom chickens, or honey from bees?Do you know what it’s like to harvest a deer, elk, buffalo, or fish?Do you know what’s it’s like to repair your own car, washingmachine, phone, toilet?Do you know what it’s like to read Lord of the Rings, Pride andPrejudice, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, or Chronicles ofNarnia?Do you know what it’s like to grow your own tomatoes, pears,peaches, rhubarb, peas, celery, carrots, walnuts, apricots,asparagus, beets, or radishes?Do you know what it’s like to fly an airplane, navigate a sailing ship,ATV, jetski, or motorcycle?Do you know what it’s like to hike through the Grand Canyon, ZionNational Park, Bryce Canyon, the Owyhee Gorge, or Yellowstone?

Do you know what it’s like to do these things or do you just knowwhat it’s like for other people to have done all these things? Life isn’tlocated in the places we think it is.

Life is not found in safety.Life is not found in the absence of pain.Life is not found in risk-free living.Life is not found in having all your needs met.

Talk to any solider. The day he felt most alive was the day in whichhe nearly died. When life is uncertain, meals are uncertain, safety isnon-existent. It’s at that moment that life really begins. It’s thereason that many soldiers struggle to live a normal life after cominghome to safety and peace and all their needs being met. It’s sonumbing compared to the life they had previously been living.

The point isn’t that everybody needs to do all these things. The pointisn’t to pointlessly throw yourself onto the front lines. It’s just areminder that there are experiences to be had everywhere that give

life and joy. And if we are paralyzed by risk or hypnotized by thefuture, we will die having never lived. We live in a world currentlyparalyzed by coronavirus because of an underlying belief that theworst thing that can happen to a person is that they die. We all needto hear Solomon’s words: there are worse things than dying.

He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards theclouds will not reap. Don’t be paralyzed by risk.

I want to live life to the hilt.I want to walk not drive.I want to drive not fly.I want to work for my food, play in the summer, work hard in theharvest.I want to enjoy God’s gifts.

It’s not a call to embrace foolish risk. It’s a call to let joy and reasonfree us from fear.

If we want a healthy perspective on life, we are going to need moreperspective still. We went inland from the sea of risk to the forest ofpatterns and chance. Now from the forest, we need to go inlandfurther to the city and find ourselves a nursery. And we need tostand in a nursery and marvel at the mystery of how life begins.

So fortunately in English, we have the word nursery which can bethe place where either plant life or human life begins, both of whichare mentioned in the text.

Solomon wants us to go to the nursery and observe life’s beginning.And the conclusion is, “Wow, we are in the absolute realm ofmystery.”

Nobody can make life just happen. Many people try to have childrenand can’t have children. Others try to not have children and doanyway. Sometimes it’s easy; other times it’s hard. Who can predictand say why?

The same is true of seeds in a field. I have in my hand a package ofseeds. If I bury each of these seeds at the exact same depth, givethem all the same water, statistically, a certain percentage of themwill not grow. But why? Which ones? We cannot know. Sometimesone will grow, or the other or both. Sometimes one will die halfwaythrough.

The whole book of Ecclesiastes is here to teach us that life is thedomain of God. We might think we are in charge of life. We certainlyunderstand the processes of life much better than they did backthen, but when it comes down to answering the questions, “What islife? Where does it come from?”, the mystery still remains just asmysterious. Solomon says stand in the nursery. Look at that babyby his mother’s side. Where did he come from? From where did hisSpirit and personality and character and unique talents and physicaltraits originate? Only God knows.

Stand in the greenhouse. Look at the seedlings growing in theirpots. Look at the potted plants just getting started in their journey.We can cultivate an environment but God alone controls life. Thepoint of verses 5 and 6 is that life is from God.

I want to focus on one word here.

The nursery teaches us that the origin of life, the source of life, is acomplete mystery and it’s wrapped up in that word spirit.Interestingly, the Hebrew word for spirit is the word “ruah” which alsomeans wind. Greek has the same ambiguity. When Jesus speaks toNicodemus and says, “Do you know where the wind comes from?”,he’s playing off that ambiguity. You don’t know where the windcomes from in the same way that you don’t know where the Spiritcomes from. Both the spirit of a man and the wind in the air areinvisible but obviously part of the fabric of reality.

Here Solomon is playing off that ambiguity in a similar way. Youdon’t know where the wind comes from and you don’t know wherethe spirit of a man comes from. You don’t know where life comesfrom. In fact, the entire book is a play on this ambiguity.

What’s the keyword in Ecclesiastes? Hevel. Vapor. Wind.

In 1:17, Solomon describes the pursuit of wisdom as an end initself as “A folly” and a what? “A striving after wind.”

In 2:26, Solomon describes the pursuit of folly as “vanity and astriving after the wind.”In 4:16, Solomon describes the short life of the influential as “vanityand striving after the wind.”In 6:9, Solomon describes a man with an unquenchable appetite,“vanity and striving after the wind.”

So the metaphor for life is wind. Life just like the wind:

It’s not controllable.It can’t be bottled up.It can’t be generated.You can’t guarantee how long it will last.It comes and goes without explanation.It’s invisible.And yet it’s present.

All through the book, Solomon is saying, “Life is like the wind.”

Why this metaphor? It’s deeper than it first appears. Remember it’sthe Hebrew word that can have two meanings. Take all of thoseverses we just read and insert the other meaning. What he’s reallypointing out is that pursuing God’s gifts as some sort of ultimatefulfillment, “Is vanity and a striving after life.” What we are reallydoing in the pursuit of God’s gifts is trying to get more life. We sensethat physical life and soul life are precious and more valuable thanany other thing. And we are right in believing that.

We sense we are dying. We sense we need life. We sense that oursoul vitality is diminishing. And so we strive for it.

We want abundant life.We want words of life.We want everlasting life.

We want newness of life.We want the light of life.We want the bread of life.

But alas, Solomon says, “Go to the nursery.” Do you have the powerto generate life in a seed? Can you make a baby grow? Life is in thedomain of God. You cannot satisfy the craving for life through thetrinkets of the world. All of these vain, windy pursuits are dead-endvanities.

It’s impossible to fabricate life because ultimately the path of lifecomes from the Author of life who gives us Christ who is our life.Jesus Christ is the grace of life who transforms us.

Jesus gave up his life that we might have life. Our names are writtenin the Book of Life and we are given the crown of life all because theLord of life gave up the breath of life so that we might live innewness of life.

Jesus Christ is life. Jesus Christ is the opposite of vapor. Take holdof him and he will not leave you or forsake you or vanish betweenyour fingers. You want to know the summary of Ecclesiastes?Vanity is trying to find life outside of Jesus Christ.

The pursuit of God’s gifts as an end in themselves will always feellike vapor between our fingers. That’s what Jesus meant when hesaid, “Whoever finds his life will lose it.” If you think you’ve foundlife, you’re grasping vapor. You’ll lose it because what you thinkyou’ve found is transient, temporal, and will fade away. It’s wind.Here today, gone tomorrow.

The most pointless thing in the world is to try and chase the wind.

We can’t chase the wind. Wind chasing is a hobby for the clinicallyinsane. And in the same way that we can’t chase the wind, we can’tchase life through the gifts of God. Life is a gift that God gives. Ourphysical life is a gift and eternal life is a gift and it is found in the verysolid, real, eternally satisfying person of Jesus Christ.

Go to the nursery. Remember, life is not in your control - neitherphysical nor spiritual.

If we want a healthy perspective on life, we are going to need moreperspective still. We went from the sea of risk inland to the forestfilled with both patterns and chance. From the forest, we went to anursery and marveled at the mystery of how life begins. Finally, wemove to the other end, and now we need to marvel at how life ends.

Stand by the elderly.

Now I won’t expend a ton of energy on this but let’s listen carefully tothis high-level point.

Life is short and nobody knows this better than the person who haslived it. Every single elderly person says the same thing, “Man, thatwent by way too fast. I can’t believe how fast life went.”

Inside every old person is a young person wondering whathappened.

So Ecclesiastes 11:7-10 is an elderly person talking to a youngperson. And this elderly person is saying, “Man, being young isawesome. Life is full of potential, the chapters of life are not writtenyet. You aren’t certain who you will marry. You don’t know yourcareer. So much of life is ahead of you. Your body, generallyspeaking, is free of pain.”

That is a gift of God. Enjoy that. You won’t always have it. Don’t

waste that vitality.

And this elderly man or elderly woman speaks up and says, “But…remember that life is a vapor. Life is like the steam off the top of akettle. It’s here for a second and vanishes.” This is a call for allpeople, but especially the young in the room to change perspective.Go stand in the shoes of the elderly and remember that how you feeltoday is not how you will feel tomorrow and there is nothing you cando to change it. In the same way that you could not control the startof your life, you cannot control the end of your life. Life and deathare in the hand of God.

So live with the end in mind. Now, I had the absolute privilege ofinterviewing a man in our body this week who is nearing the end ofhis life. Many of you know the blind man in our church, Clair. He’shad a stomach issue that has put him on hospice. I called him thisweek and asked him and asked if I could record our conversationand just see what advice he would have for us. Here’s a man whohas lived decades with the Lord:

he’s lived through WWII,he’s lived through the Dust Bowl,he’s lived through the Great Depression,he’s lived through Vietnam,he’s gone from horse and buggy to modern transit and the inventionof the internet.

I mean here’s a guy with a perspective on life. Here’s a guy who cantell you what matters. I had about a 20-minute conversation with himand we’ve clipped it down to a minute for the purposes of today. Asyou listen, I just want you to notice how similar Clair’s conclusionsare to Solomon’s.

What is Solomon’s conclusion? We are going to get it in two weeks:“Fear God and keep his commandments.”

What does Claire say? “Fall in love with Jesus Christ and doeverything you can to obey him.”

That’s like the NT version of Ecclesiastes. It’s beautiful.

Application

How does standing by the sea, forest, nursery, and elderly help withpractical decisions like what job to take, where to move, where tosend you kids to school, and what to do with your summer?

You see, God is in all those places. I want you to stand back andmarvel at what it means to be all-knowing and present everywhere. Itmeans that you are not limited to your single perspective.

We have one perspective. God, on the other hand, sees the worldfrom every perspective simultaneously. Not just that he knows allthings, but he knows what the world looks like through your eyes.He knows what the world feels like through my eyes. Is that notcomforting? Often when I’m talking with other people I’m alwayswondering, what is it like to be you. But I can barely get in. I canbarely empathize, understand, guess, or imagine. But God can see itall perfectly. He can see every perspective.

Doesn’t it help to know that so you can trust that whatever ishappening to you is the plan that was determined by the all-seeingGod who factored in your perspective? Your perspective didn’t getmissed. Isn’t that helpful? I would never run the world this way, but Iadmit I can only see the world through my eyes. There are 7.8 billionpeople on the planet. That’s a lot of perspectives. Obviously, myview can’t take into account the needs of the whole. But God cansee. And he doesn’t just kind of see. He sees perfectly.

So you are standing before a big decision. Maybe a big healthdecision, job decision, schooling decision, financial decision. How dothese four perspectives help?

God brings us to the sea. What is that big decision in front of you?You’re asking the question, “What should I do?” He frees us to castour bread upon the waters. Take that risk because you know theoutcome and if your ship sinks, it’s okay because it was neverabout the ship. But don’t forget to be generous before you risk.God brings us to the forest. What is that big decision in front ofyou? “What should I do?” Some things you have control of andother things you don’t. God frees us from worrying about the futureso we can enjoy today. Don’t bank on what you think you know.Don’t be paralyzed by what you think you know. Just do the rightthing and enjoy the gift of life.God brings us to the nursery. What is that big decision in front ofyou? “What should I do?” Don’t think that your joy in life will hingeupon this decision. Life is a gift from God. You can’t create life.Real life, abundant life, eternal life is in Jesus Christ.God brings us to the elderly. What is that big decision in front ofyou? “What should I do?” Will it even matter? Will you even care?Why spend all this time worrying about this when in the end, youwill say, “The only thing that matters is divine love. Divine love willsolve every human problem. Fall in love with Jesus Christ and doeverything you can to obey him.”

Or in the words of Solomon, “Fear God and keep hiscommandments.”

Do you see the power of perspective?