Figuring Out

Yes.

There is so much to figure out in this life. There is so much to decide. A person could spend their whole life planning, plotting and deliberating about how to live that life.

Surely, some good portion of our time here on Earth must be spent considering what to do with the rest of our time. Right? Sometimes it gets to be too much, though. Sometimes it's better to dive into life without a definite course plotted. Or rather, I should say, sometimes it's better to live life rather than dissecting it.

After all, what happens to any other living thing when you cut it open to see the inner workings? Usually, you kill the creature in the process. Why would we expect something different in the case of the human soul?

Maybe this is some of what King Solomon was talking about when he wrote:

"Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?" -

Ecclesiastes 7:16 (ESV)

Yes. I think that's what he was talking about.

Don't misunderstand me, please. I don't mean, nor did wisdom filled Solomon, that we ought to live recklessly. God has given us so many good gifts. How could it be reverent to steward them poorly? How could it be called love for Him, who loved us in giving those gifts, if we then chose to treat those gifts with casual contempt? But sometimes good stewardship of God's gifts means living in such a way as to enjoy them, especially when particular gifts were given purely for our enjoyment.

Indeed, isn't that the whole aim and point and definition of righteousness? Accepting and esteeming, in thought and word and deed, the role and purpose which God created every person and thing with?

The man who reveres God will accept that the purpose of other men's possessions or wives is to suit the needs of those men, and he won't try to steal either another man's effects nor affections; he won't steal that man's property nor that man's wife.

Of course, righteousness is more than actions, adultery and theft for instance, left undone. The man who reveres God will seek to find contentment with and give thanks for those objects and persons which God has given him.

But God gives men more than just loved ones and objects, doesn't He? What of the opportunities? Let them be summed up with this:

"So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. " -

James 4:17 (ESV)