After being away on my trip to Michigan, seeing the grandchildren and renewing some great friendships at the Association of Christian Librarians (and meeting some new friends there), it is good to be back into my more regular routine of Bible reading. I had not realized how much I was enjoying doing this until I did not do it for a few days!
Ecclesiastes 2:24-26
A person can do nothing better than to
eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This, too, I see, is from the hand of God,
for without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment?
To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and
happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up
wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.
Although work is part of the penalty of sin (Genesis 3:17-19), these verses show me that God can turn
even a bad thing into something good in my life. I must live under the penalty of sin but God
has given me the gift of being able to enjoy work and its rewards. If I am willing to please God in what I must
do, He in turn will bless me with the ability to enjoy what I must do. To be able to enjoy my work is a gift from
God in itself. Even now, in my
retirement, work has not stopped. It has
changed in that I no longer get up and go to a workplace every day, but there
is still work to be done. In fact, the
work now is more challenging to me than ever because I do not particularly like
cleaning house and such tasks, but that is still part of my work that God wants me to find
pleasure in. Ecclesiastes 3:13, this
principle is repeated: finding satisfaction in my work is the gift of God to
me.
About a year ago I "discovered" the new trend of Bible journaling and have found great delight in recording my thoughts in a more artistic way. Although I am definitely no artist, that creative expression has left me quite inspired as I meditate on certain verses from Scripture. I have not felt free to make any of those expressions public as on this blog, but I am losing my shyness and I find myself sharing this entry from this morning because it relates so closely with my post:
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