But Daddy, Why?
Read Ecclesiastes 3:1–5; 3:20
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9. What do people really get for all their hard work?
10. I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.
11. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
12. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.
13. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.
14. And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him.
15. What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again. Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
Children who have reached the “Why?” stage remind us that they live in a smaller, simpler world than adults do. Often, the questions and truths that intrigue the young are beyond their comprehension.
Solomon lists several disappointments he has observed in the world and asks why they have to exist. Unable to grasp the answers, he has to come to a sort of compromise. Let him lead you to the “grown-up” who can explain.
This reading also comments further on three areas of life that touch us all: death, work, and friendship.
In Ecclesiastes 3:16–4:12, Solomon reflects on six apparent contradictions in the world. First, wickedness rules where justice should (3:16). Second, people created in God’s image die just as the animals do (3:18-21). Third, no one comforts oppressed people (4:1). Fourth, many people work because they envy what others have, not because they love their work (4:4). Fifth, people are lonely (4:7-12). Sixth, fame doesn’t last (4:13-16).
Many questions in life cannot be answered to our satisfaction because we lack the ability to understand the answers, not because the answers don’t exist. Although we cannot understand the answers today, one day we will. In the meantime, we should trust life’s apparent contradictions to God and not lose faith in him when we don’t understand something.
