Ecclisiastes 7 - A little bit of country and a little bit of rock and roll
Ecclesiastes 7 is extremely interesting to me. It contains a perspective on life and death that people just aren’t taught, that we should live in righteousness, but without denying our sinful nature. In fact, hold on to it, because the circumstances of life in which we sin were put there by God, and by those situations we grow. If we overcome them, we become more like Him. If we don’t, then we don’t.
I do not believe this means that we are live in sin, but that we live in the knowledge of the sin we would commit. From that perspective, there are aspects of live that are not sinful per se, but are only there because we have a sinful nature that would trap us if we didn’t learn to do certain to keep it in check. For example, for a man, there is intimacy with a woman. It is a actually a good thing from God, but we turn it into something else. God made it something through which we could understand Him and His love for us. Instead, we either make it a source of pleasure without commitment, or we marry the woman and make it a commitment that has no pleasure. Neither extreme is right. We are to marry the woman and enjoy the pleasure in a way that brings both us and our wives closer to God, for the height of such passion, coming from a loving commitment, is what may give us a clue as to the strength of passion God feels for us… a passion that made it worth it for Him to die on the cross for our sins.
Yet, only 1 in a thousand perhaps can achieve such a relationship. Women have a such a different nature than men however, they are already so much more attuned to the ways of loyalty, intimacy, and love, that their experience may not reveal to them as much about God’s love as it can for a man… for a man has much more to overcome to get there. You see, a man’s sinful nature wants him to sin, and so his effort at commitment, intimacy, and love, when done right, must be greater. And the greater the effort, the greater the reward. Therefore, far fewer men than women will live out love without sinning; those men who do however will have put forth much greater effort than women generally have to, because the men have so much more to overcome in getting there… the lovingness that comes natural for a mother and a wife requires hard work when accomplished by a man… and while God cannot sin, He yet puts forth a greater effort than any mere physical man ever can. And so it is the reward for that effort, at that height of passion, that puts that rare man in a position to understand God’s love for us. For the rest of them, well at least for many it would be better for them not to be married at all and simply live in abstinence, because their sinful nature would just get the best of them… they get the pleasure (through their lust), and lose out on the love, just living for the next time, and many do not care where they get it. And so for those men who cannot learn that pure love while married, they must learn to love God while single. And for those who cannot remain pure while single, well they should in fact marry, so that at least they do not sin (at least physically… their heart could be another matter).
Re-read Ecclesiastes 7. I believe there is much wisdom there to be had.