How Should We Then Live: Ecclesiastes 11:1-8

Years ago a well-known apologist/evangelist, Dr. Francis Schaeffer, created a video study called “How Should We Then Live,” an attempt to give a Christian answer to the world our philosophical underpinnings have created. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes is doing the same thing in his treatise. If there is no guarantee that future events will turn out well, how should we then live? If there is no way we can find to make certain that our lives will work out well, what do we do?

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

There are two strategies we must follow in light of the uncertainty of the future:

Spread your risk. If you put all your eggs in one basket and that basket is dropped, you lose everything. But if you invest in multiple things of value there is a greater likelihood that some of them will pan out. This makes sense economically and may also make some sense relationally, though there are divine limits on how we invest relationally.

Don’t yield to fear. Don’t give up all human enterprise for fear of failure. You will never “reap” anything that way.

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

The third strategy to follow in light of the uncertainty of the future and any way of controlling what happens to us is:

Don’t overdo anything and find joy where you can. We don’t know how God is going to work things out in our lives, whether good or bad, but we know that it is good to work and good to get away from that work and invest in other aspects of life. If we live long we will find many things to rejoice in and we should do just that, rejoice. But we will also find much darkness in our lives.  That is inevitable. That is the futility of life that God has subjected the world to. You cannot figure it out; you cannot straighten that paper clip.

John Adams, a hero of the American revolution and third president of the United States, was a god-fearing believer who raised his family in the faith. He had four children. His oldest, a daughter, Nabby, married and had children but died of breast cancer a relatively young woman. His two youngest sons were consumed with alcoholism and lack of purpose. His oldest son, John Quincy, became the sixth president of the United States. He had cast his bread upon the waters. He experienced glorious, though hard won, victories, and debilitating and depressing defeats. If anyone should have had a guarantee of a glorious future it should have been him. But none of us have that. He didn’t give up, as we might be tempted to do, but found joy in the many blessings God gave him and learned from the distresses he experienced. That is how we should then live.