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A MERRY HEART (II)
SATURDAY, MAY 1
Proverbs 17:22

Ecclesiastes 2:4-11

 

“A merry heart doeth good

like a medicine…”

 

A MERRY HEART (II)
 
Solomon tried worldly achievement. “I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees” (Eccles 2:4-6). We are told elsewhere how he built “the house of the forest of Lebanon,” with “four rows” of “forty five pillars,” and “windows in three rows,” where “light was against light in three ranks” (1 Kings 7:2-4) ‒ so beautiful that when the “queen of Sheba had seen… the house that he had built,” she was utterly deflated: “there was no more spirit in her” (1 Kings 10:4-5).
 
Solomon tried worldly enrichment. “I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces” (Eccles 2:7-8). He was, by all accounts, one of the richest men who ever lived. Yet once again we must ask, what was his final conclusion? “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun” (Eccles 2:11).
 
Ah, how many there are who walk the same path, today! How many there are who take wealth and accomplishment to be the key to success in life; how many, who fix this as the greatest and most worthwhile of human pursuits! A famous thinker of the not-so-distant past opined, “Religion is… the opium of the people” ‒ as though true happiness can only be found through economic liberation, and religion is a stupefying hindrance lying in the way of progress! The very opposite is the case. It was One wiser than Solomon who said, “what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
 
Dear reader, have you been taken in by this deception? Have you only “heaped treasure together for the last days” (James 5:3)?
 
THOUGHT: If I have my “portion in this life” (Ps 17:14), I will never be able to find true happiness.
PRAYER: “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” (Ps 17:15)

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