No matter what we do, we are always subject to chance events that make the outcomes of our activity uncertain: the weather, the fluctuating market, the choices of people, random accidents, etc. At least that’s how it is when you live outside God’s purpose and providence. That is Solomon’s next point. The Christian worldview is not like that of the ancient Roman stoics who thought that every tiny event in the world and every choice of every person was predetermined. At times it seems that the Bible advocates this view, as when Paul says: “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). But this does not necessarily rule out free random choices on the part of people or random events in the world. It simply states that God is sovereign over these random events and that, as Paul says in Romans 8:28: “In all things God works for the good of those who love him.” Here is the difference this makes: when you live in God’s purpose, random events might happen to you, but your life will not be determined by them. If you don’t live in God’s purpose then you are like a cork bobbing around in an ocean of random events. Then life becomes meaningless as Solomon observes here. But if you live in God’s purpose, God can make everything meaningful, even the terrible random events that befall us. Nothing is outside God’s sovereignty.
Commit yourself to God’s purpose again for today and ask him to make clear his will for you in everything that happens.
Read Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
