Well, now that school has been out for three weeks and I have had time to reflect on the school year while accomplishing things at home, I think it’s well past time (now that I have more time) to start posting stories and snippets from my past year at school. They won’t be in any specific order, but as I think of the stories I will record them here.
God was so good to me this year and He gave me many opportunities to learn, serve, teach, and lead at school. Hopefully I can use my blog to communicate the love, joy, and peace that I experienced, the patience, kindness, and goodness with which I was encouraged, and the faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control toward which I was challenged.
Life at Faith Baptist Bible College is definitely an experience, a valuable one. There are so many things to share, just from this last year. My first year was filled with learning opportunities as I adjusted to college life at Faith and got settled into my higher-learning environment. Now I’m weathered and learned, and my year was about utilizing every opportunity God gave me to grow and help others grow. So to God be the glory for what He has done.
Tag: Bible
Day 40: Ecclesiastes 7:25-26
“I applied my heart to know, to search out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her.”
Searching for the truth behind wisdom and foolishness, Solomon examines his own life in which he fulfilled to the utmost his lustly flesh by gathering to himself wife after wife and concubine after concubine. What does he conclude? “I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters.”
His desires pulled him down, turned his heart away from God, and led him down a path of destruction. Yes, this was the wisest man in the world.
How much more possible is it for me today to be ensnared by these same desires? How much more possible is it for men and women today to succumb to their flesh?
What is Solomon’s conclusion? “He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her.”
May I be one of those who “pleases God” in this way.
Day 39: Ecclesiastes 7:23-24
Solomon said, “I will be wise,” but even as wise as he was, he could not understand everything. “I said, ‘I will be wise’; but it was far from me. As for that which is far off and exceedingly deep, who can find it out?”
About two-thirds of the way through Ecclesiastes, Solomon concedes that some things in life just cannot be understood, no matter how hard someone strives to learn them. Up to this point, Solomon has spoken about the vanity of life and offered some general principles about life just as he did in Proverbs. He now reminds his readers that he doesn’t know everything, and he also gives a preview of the book’s conclusion…too much study is wearisome to the flesh.
Day 38: Ecclesiastes 7:21-22
Shame on us if we ever underestimate the power of words, whether spoken, inscribed, texted, or typed. But we often forget how significant words are until they effect us. It’s easy to speak an idle word or give a command with far-reaching implications, but when an idle word or command (or any other category of words) impacts me, that’s when I begin to understand it.
Day 37: Ecclesiastes 7:19-20
“Wisdom strengthens the wise more than ten rulers of the city. For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.”
“Wisdom strengthens the wise,” just as muscle strengthens a body-builder or money strengthens the rich. But I think it may be more than just quantity that generates strength.
