Ecclesiastes

"So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun" (Eccl. 8:15).

Accepting our human limitations as the gift of God is a difficult task. Look at all the injustice around us! How the poor are mistreated, and millions die in war and famine and meaninglessness. We are bent on fixing the world, and rightly so, for that is God’s work that he is already doing.

But we are tempted to leave behind what it means to be human – finding simple and good pleasure in life – and instead trade it for "super"-human existence, in the guise of self-sacrifice and cross-bearing, that leaves us acting and behaving like gods who "really" know how the world should work, and do our damnedest to see our vision become a reality. Broken families and burned out pastors and church congregations are our legacy. Few know what it means to be human. And then the justice and peace-making we so passionately pursue, though a crucial and central part of being human, not only does not deliver the oppressed, but we are, in fact, never delivered ourselves.