living loved

I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare…I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all…                         – Ecclesiastes 7: 26-29

Wow. Merry Christmas. Those are some words wrapped in a not so neatly adorned manipulative punch to the hearer, listener, and then doer. Yikes.

My bearded beauty has been studying the book of Ecclesiastes. He couldn’t wait to share these verses and his turmoil upon reading them. He ranted and raved for a solid five minutes about…well, that is his story to tell. Most readers assume Solomon as the writer of Ecclesiastes and while that may be true, many scholars have deemed this book written by an unknown author. Regardless, this writer is hurt. This writer is bitter. This writer (if you read the entire thing) is on a quest for knowledge, and power, and all the hidden things of the world, and without God, he just comes up empty again and again. Without reading and understanding the entire context, these few verses could create a whole lot of controversy and a whole lot of manipulation and aggression – and given that the readers are all humans and sinners, I am sure that happens.

The end of our conversation about these verses ended with this: 

Jer: Lover, you know that you were my greatest gift from God, and I was yours.

Me: Why, love?

Jer: Because I needed you to correct my bitter heart, and you needed to know that there was man on this side of heaven that could love you like Jesus.

Cry. Cry. Cry. He gets me – not Jer (sometimes he does) – but God. He really gets me. Our Father, our Jehovah Jireh, our all-knowing (in naughty and nice) really gets me. And you know what is so beautiful and makes me stand in wonder and awe, He gets all of you, too. He gets you, reader. He gets you and He also gets all the people who have hurt us or whom we have hurt. He gets us. He gets all of humanity in its filth and troubles and sin. He gets us.

And in the “getting,” He knew we needed a Savior. The author of Ecclesiastes couldn’t do this life on his own, not fully. He strived and tried and was left empty. God didn’t want him to stay there in that emptiness, and He doesn’t want you there either.

So, our good, good Father sent the best gift ever. His Son. He sent the Gift because He didn’t want our hearts to remain like the verses above without love and peace and joy and all the beautiful trimmings and trappings of the greatest gift ever.

Merry Christmas, friends. Your greatest gift this season is Jesus – I pray you open your hearts to receive Him.

XOXO, Loni