How should you invest? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
We start Ecclesiastes 11 with the first six verses:
Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.
2 Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
3 If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
4 He who observes the wind will not sow,
and he who regards the clouds will not reap.5 As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.
6 In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
I’m not one much for taking risks. Putting yourself out there is difficult. Even in my gaming, I will often take the most defensive strategy that I can in facing an opponent. If I am going to stick my neck out for something,
I’m not sure if the Teacher would agree. The impression I get is he is saying to go ahead and take a chance. Cast your bread on the water and see if it comes back to you. You don’t know what could go wrong so what’s the point in hoarding what you have?
Some could look at verse 5 and say we do know now how a baby’s body is formed in the womb, but while we do and they didn’t, I think the text is also asking about how the baby’s soul comes to be in the body. Even that is debated. Some people are physicalists even in the Christian tradition who say we don’t have a soul. Some think God creates the soul when a new baby is conceived, and some think the soul comes about through the mingling of the bodies somehow. Me? I go for either of the latter one, though there’s no hill I’m willing to die on.
There are aspects of life God will always know and we will not and we can leave those in His hands. At the same time, I am hesitant when I am at any church and I hear people claim that they know what God was doing in such a situation. How? Because it had a good outcome so that means God was directly micro-managing it behind the scenes? You don’t know that. We should always be cautious when it comes to proclaiming what God has done or said.
That being said, if you do make an investment, do your part to work at it if you can. Don’t let it go to waste. Work diligently and if you benefit from it, rejoice, but keep in mind everything is in the hand of God and you do not have any guarantees in this.
Work your money wisely. Make the most of it.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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