One of my favorite books of the Bible is Ecclesiastes, and chapter 7 in particular is full of practical wisdom, such as:
“Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. – Ecclesiastes 7:9-10
People commonly refer to the “glory days” of their past. When they were an athlete. When they were younger. Before they had responsibilities. Before they experienced a loss of a loved one, job/career, home, or anything they held valuable. Before the Covid-19 pandemic. Somehow the past looks better.
In these verses, Solomon, who lived a life where he gained and lost far more than nearly anyone else ever will, categorically says this is foolish. He’s not doing this to criticize, but to keep others from repeating his own mistakes. To advise against anger for the wrong reasons about things that can’t be changed or fixed.
God’s mercies are new every morning, and with the path we’ve taken before today, He has prepared us for the day ahead in a way no other path could. Strive for what is ahead – your true “glory days” in Him! Start from here and listen for Him. Perfection lies ahead.
Sometimes the Bible surprises us by explaining things differently than how our natural instincts would like. In the case of Psalm 119:75, there are two words that we might not think of together:
“I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”
How often do we associate God’s faithfulness with affliction? Don’t we usually associate it with our blessings? Yet there it is: “in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”
Earlier, in verse 71, David wrote:
“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”
Then he says the benefit he gets from learning this is more than “thousands of gold and silver pieces”. Since we benefit from discipline, would God be unfaithful if He did not discipline us? Or do we only consider Him faithful when things seem to go well?
“My son, do not despise the LORD’S discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” – Proverbs 3:11-12
He is faithful, always. Even in affliction. Perhaps especially.
What do you think of when you think of a conscience? For some it’s the image from old cartoons of a person with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, each giving competing moral advice. That image is funny partly because it might not be far from the truth.
For some, a conscience is a “moral compass” – that internal voice that helps us distinguish right from wrong. While this is another good image for a conscience, we have new technology now. We use GPS now, and when I think of a conscience, the voice of my GPS comes to mind. Let me explain.
A compass is too simple a metaphor. The voice of our conscience is not usually like a clear sign or bright, flashing lights pointing the way (although God can use whatever means He chooses). In my experience, a conscience is more like a broken GPS system, that has many voices, not just one, like a real GPS. Not that we’re all “hearing voices,” but since our conscience is giving us directions, a voice seems a good metaphor. You could call it an influence or something else. Anyway, some of the voices tell us to go places we shouldn’t and not to go places we should, and some of them lead us the right way. We find ourselves weighing the pros and cons of these multiple voices. For every decision we make, there’s a reason we make it, and often we don’t explicitly think about why. It could be something we learned from our culture, our family, our education, or from anything we’ve experienced. It might come from something we saw or listened to recently, or many years ago. It could also be something we just invented ourselves. But it’s there, trying to influence us.
Now not everyone has the same voices in their conscience. For someone who isn’t a Christian, their GPS considers all the factors it has, and they make decisions as they see fit by prioritizing among the influences. But for a Christian, salvation requires realizing our GPS is fundamentally broken, trusting someone who knows how to fix it, and then striving to follow the new instructions. When this happens, a Christian gets an added feature in their internal GPS – a new voice. This voice is the Holy Spirit, but it doesn’t become the only voice, it just adds one more competing voice to the cacophony. However, the Spirit is the only voice that can be trusted to guide us to the right destination 100% of the time.
As we make decisions in the world, each of us try to follow the advice of our conscience, but we must remember that our consciences are broken until we reach heaven. Many voices work hard to influence us, and any voice that we follow into disobedience from God can be considered an idol for us. Only the Holy Spirit speaks with the wisdom needed for us to fulfill our purpose as individuals made in God’s image.
However you think of what a conscience is, let Him rule it, and “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy” – 1 Peter 3:15a
Then you can have a clean conscience, whatever you do.
Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, five quotes on the theme of popular opinion when it goes wrong:
“Those who call for Nonsense will find that it comes.” – C.S. Lewis
“We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” – Charles Mackay
“The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.” – Ludwig von Mises
“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.” – George Orwell
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” – Isaiah 5:20
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 