Better is a Handful of Quietness

I have been meditating on Ecclesiastes 4:6

"Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind."

As a child I remember playfully wearing myself out, chasing after the wind. Trying to grab it, contain it. Yet, it cannot be tamed or amassed by human hands. So too my life can take on the appearance of one running around the yard with frenetic energy trying to gain something, while gaining nothing in the end, unaware of the childlike appearance of pursuing that which is unattainable. This isn't to say that I shouldn't work, or shouldn't build wealth for my family, that I shouldn't possess material things. But it begs the question, what should I be striving for? If I hunger, for what do I hunger? If I thirst, what do I thirst for? If I desire anything, what do I desire?

As I have considered my Dad's death, I have taken a glimpse ahead at my own certain future. One day the sun will rise on my lifeless body, hidden by the dust of the earth, and it will descend without noticing that I am no longer standing watch. I consider Jesus' words to Martha when she approached him after her brothers death. So distraught and confused as to why the one person who could have kept her brother from dying, so seemingly callous, kept his distance. He told her that Lazarus would rise again. And she basically said (paraphrase), "I know, I know. He will rise in the resurrection in the last days". Believing perhaps that Jesus was giving her cliche grief advice. Jesus didn't then respond with, "No, in a few minutes I am going to raise him from the dead." Because even though that is true, we also know that at some later point after being raised, Lazarus died, again. To be mourned again. To be buried. Again. No, Jesus spoke these words of hope, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, although he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die."

I have written before, that Jesus entered into their grief, not as a distant unfeeling, impersonal companion, but with perfect and real sadness for broken dying humans and a broken world he had come to redeem, rebuild, and make new. If I was Lazarus, after being raised from the dead, I don't know exactly what I would think or feel. But in that moment I would want only to be with Christ. Or would I? For I too have been made alive by Christ yet look at all that I toil for. So my soul, stop grasping for the wind. Instead with quiet hands, lay hold of Christ.