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IBS 73 - Ecclesiastes 6:2

Ecclesiastes 6:2
“God gives some people wealth, possessions, and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them, and strangers enjoy them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.”

It’s so easy to be jealous of people of the world. To look at their wealth, their possessions, and see that they have all their hearts desires. It’s so easy for me to look at that and then get frustrated because I don’t have any of that. Sometimes I’ll wonder why God gave them their desires and not give me my desires. Whenever I think that way, I’m not thinking rationally. The worldly people, who have all their desires, can’t truly enjoy their wealth. God hasn’t given them the ability too. That’s why they keep searching for more wealth, more lovers, and that’s when they get into bad things like drugs and alcohol. Their ending is not an ending I’d ever want.  
As I’ve grown this year, I’ve realized that I don’t want what my flesh wants. If I receive the things my flesh wants then my ending will be the ending that I don’t want to have. As I’ve grown, my desires have changed drastically. Now, my desire is for Christ. I want to be in His presence. I want to be like Him. 
In Psalm 73 it talks about how the writer almost slipped. He envied the arrogant and saw the prosperity of the wicked. He says that when his heart was grieved and his spirit embittered, he was senseless and ignorant; he was a brute beast before God. But then he goes on to say that yet, God is with him. Holding him by the right hand, guiding him. He says, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and heart may fail, but God is my strength of my heart and my portions forever…But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge.” 
I no longer desire the world, but my God. My refuge, my strength, my rock, my creator. He created me to be near Him, and when I stray from Him I feel lost and confused, uncertain and searching for things that don’t matter. But being near God, my soul is at peace, I have confidence in my Savior, I feel safe and unafraid. I don’t envy the wicked because they don’t have an eternal peace and joy, they aren’t confident in knowing that they’ll be spending eternity with the Almighty. 

My soul longs and desires to be near the Lord. 

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