I Hate Poetery

Seriously! Apparently any little one or two liner that comes to someone's mind...that doesn't even rhyme...they call it poetry and it kills me every time (hehe). I took a college class that focused on poetry and I hated every minute of it. But just a few hours ago, I stumbled on this verse in in Ecclesiastes (1:7):

All streams run to the sea,
  but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
  there they flow again.

He's writes this to explain how lame can be. It's kinda like that hamster running in the wheel...going nowhere, but this time, even nature itself is doing the same thing. The crazy thing is that of all the streams feeding into the ocean...THE OCEAN IS NEVER FULL! Instead the water starts going down the stream, ends up in the ocean, it evaporates, and rains down right back into the flippin stream to do it all over again!

This really helps me understand how truly meaningless everything the world has to offer. We can fill ourselves up with video games, relationships, good times, etc. but when some time passes by, it's as if nothing really happened. We are no more "full" than when we started. Think about all the streams flowing into the ocean! We can try to get "full" from thousands of different sources, but none of them will deliver fulfillment. We will always be wanting more, probably thinking that the next stream is going to be the one.

For about 12 chapters, the author of Ecclesiastes, who by the way had all the wealth you could imagine, like 800 concubines (if you don't know what that is, look it up in the dictionary), and anything else one could have in the year 900 b.c. (they couldn't miss the x-box because it wasn't a twinkle in his mothers eye, but whatever they did have, he had it). But at the very end, I mean the very end of his little book, the author says something really bold. He says, "The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with​ every secret thing, whether good or evil."

Fearing and obeying God is the one thing that doesn’t just flow in and through you. Fearing and obeying God brings results, it fulfills, it lasts FOREVER. Forever is a long time away for most of us, but what do we want to do: continue trying to be filled up by the rivers in our lives, that only leave us wanting more? Or do we want to fill up from the Source of all that is good, from the One who said, “I am THE way and THE truth and THE LIFE?