Simple Joys
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Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 (ESV) “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil that you toil at under the sun.”
What It Is Speaking to Me
Ecclesiastes has a reputation, and it’s somewhat fair. Solomon spends most of the book circling the same hard question: if everything ends the same way, in the grave, then what’s the actual point of any of it? There is a point to the question, but that is for another devotional.
Right in the middle of all that somber pondering, Solomon stops and says: go eat your bread with joy. Drink your wine with a glad heart. Put on something nice. Don’t skip the little comforts. Love the person you’re married to, and actually enjoy the life you’ve got instead of the one you keep wishing for. Because that’s the portion God gave you.
Somewhere along the way, some Christians have decided that enjoying a good meal, an evening of popular music, or a hangout with friends that didn't have a Bible study component as a waste of time. As unspiritual. As if somehow God would not approve.
But Solomon is saying God has ALREADY approved what we are doing, before we ever eat that bread with joy. His approval doesn’t come from the joy. It’s already there. The joy is just us noticing. As our Youth Pastor says, "Don't sin, and have fun." She is even quicker to the point than Solomon. Let's not miss out the simple joys of life, God already approves.
What Is It Saying to You?
What ordinary pleasure have you been treating as less spiritual than it actually is?
Where in your week do you tend to rush past good, ordinary moments without really noticing them?
What would it look like in your heart and mind to believe God has already approved the plain, everyday things you’re doing right now?
What Are We Going to Do About It?
Pick one ordinary thing you did today and find something genuinely good about it. Pause there and reflect. That’s a form of worship.
