Wednesday 18 November 2020

Time and chance


What do you make of these words from Ecclesiastes? Is Solomon suggesting that it is just a matter of 'fate' when things happen to us or can we believe that God is still in control of how things turn out?

"I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all."
- Ecclesiastes 9:11

I would agree with the following:

Anyone can run the race of life...
Anyone can fight in this battle...
You don't have to have academic degrees to put food on the table...
It is not only pupils in the A class who make lots of money...
People with little education have won public office and positions of leadership...

BUT, I am not sure of the word 'chance' - The Living Bible says it like this:
"but it is all by chance, by happening to be at the right place at the right time."

Of course, TIME catches up with all of us, but I would feel comfortable using the word 'God's will' instead of Chance. It just makes me feel that God is more in control of things, compared to Chance.

What do you feel? 

"Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Living in Grace
D3LM3

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