by Charles Bertelsmeier
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Read Ecclesiastes 1:1–11
Although I can remember the names and a little about the lives of my grandparents, I would struggle to tell you the names of all my great-grandparents or anything about their lives.
Then I think about my grandchildren and realise they know virtually nothing about my parents and previous generations. I’m sure we could all agree with the sentiment expressed in today’s verse.
We will spend today and the next four days looking at the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. Before you open your calendar app and set a reminder to resume reading LCA devotions next Saturday and skip these five days, let me encourage you to persevere. God has put every book of the Bible there for a reason and has a message for us. I pray that God has a message for you in what he gives me to write. You may also like to read the whole book before we proceed with these devotions.
The first verse of this book indicates that the author is King Solomon. God blessed King Solomon to be one of the wisest people in history. He is also believed to be the author of the biblical book Song of Songs and to have collected many proverbs.
In Ecclesiastes, the author conducts a series of scientific experiments to find the meaning of life. In reflecting on this, I think we are all doing the same, but probably not as scientifically as Solomon. As young children, we are absorbed in play. As teenagers, we are trying to discover who we are. As young adults, we seek acceptance through our friendship circles and employment. Then, we aim to perpetuate our identity through our children, moving on to get ourselves financially secure and finally retiring to contemplate what we have achieved with our lives. Maybe we will even write up our life stories to perpetuate our legacies.
Solomon tries a range of activities to find meaning and fulfilment but comes up empty each time. Most of these things are things we also do to try to discover meaning and purpose. Spoiler alert: The conclusion Solomon comes to is that we only find that meaning and purpose through our relationship with God and by surrendering our lives to the plans he has for us.
Most of us, me included, didn’t want to hear that when we were younger and tried looking elsewhere. I thank God he didn’t give up on me and gently led me to accept Solomon’s conclusion.
Heavenly Father, I accept that life without you is meaningless. Please help me to listen to your Spirit as we dive into the Book of Ecclesiastes and to find meaning and purpose in your plans for us. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on communications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
Wisdom from a quiet heart
by Linda Macqueen
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… you will only find yourselves fighting against God (Acts 5:39b).
Read Acts 5:27–39
There are a lot of themes we could explore in today’s text, but I can’t miss the opportunity to talk about my second-favourite Pharisee. (Nicodemus is my favourite.) In Acts 5, the apostles stand before the Sanhedrin, accused of defying strict orders to stop teaching about Jesus. The council is furious, intent on silencing these heretics once and for all. Then, into the strained atmosphere steps a devout and highly respected Pharisee. His name is Gamaliel (who was Saul/Paul’s teacher – Acts 22:3).
Gamaliel doesn’t puff his chest out like a peacock. He doesn’t join the chorus of outrage. Instead, he offers a measured, almost understated word of caution: ‘Consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.’ His counsel is simple: if this movement is merely human, it will collapse on its own. But if it is from God, no amount of force will stop it, and opposing it would place the Sanhedrin on the wrong side of God’s purposes.
Gamaliel is not dodging his leadership obligations by sitting on the fence. His counsel is not passivity; it is discernment. It is the refusal to be swept along by fear, anger or groupthink. It is the courage to pause when everyone else is rushing to judgement.
Is it just me, or do you also see a cultural shift towards instant reactions, accompanied by fierce rhetoric? Enemies are easily named. Outrage is applauded. Nuance is dismissed as weakness. And we see Christians, too, drawn into this vortex – quick to label, quick to blame, quick to draw battle lines.
Gamaliel invites us to a different approach. One that trusts God enough to wait. One that believes truth does not need panic to sustain it. One that remembers that the kingdom of God does not advance through force, fear or frenzy, but through the quiet, steady and sometimes off-script work of the Spirit.
Perhaps the most radical witness we Christians can offer today is not louder certainty but deeper calm. Not sharper lines between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ but more space that leaves room for God to act, however and wherever he chooses. Today, my second-favourite Pharisee reminds us that wisdom often sounds like a gentle voice saying, ‘Slow down. Look again. Perhaps God is in this picture.’
Wise and faithful Father, help me to resist the pull of reactive living, of jumping quickly to judgement and outrage. Instead, cultivate in me the quiet confidence that your purposes will stand – whether or not I rush to defend them. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
Strength for the waiting
by Linda Macqueen
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Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31a).
Read Isaiah 40:25–31
Yesterday, we left the disciples quivering in the upper room, sensing doom. In the coming days, they will huddle in dark corners, fighting twin tormentors: the fear of abandonment and the loss of all hope. We’ve heard this story before. Or one like it.
Hundreds of years earlier, about 7,000 of God’s people were locked up in a foreign land, broken under abandonment and hopelessness, not for a few days or even years, but for entire generations. Into that national despair, God asks a startling question: ‘To whom will you compare me?’ Through his prophet Isaiah, God calls them to lift their gaze from their exhaustion to the One who names the stars and gives them their orders. Renewal for the exiled people of Judah begins not with pulling themselves up by their bootstraps but with a fresh vision of God’s enduring faithfulness and sovereign strength.
It’s against this dark backdrop that verse 31a – the star of countless Christian memes – shines brightly: ‘But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.’ The Hebrew verb here, qāvāh, carries the sense of hopeful, tensile waiting – like strands twisted together to form a strong rope. Waiting on God is not passive or resigned. It is the active, intentional trust of people who bind their lives to his life, drawing strength through the long, dark silences from the One who holds them.
Just like the captives in Babylon, we can grow weary not only from life’s challenges themselves, but also from the pressure to solve them in our own strength. Isaiah reminds us that renewal comes not from tightening our grip, but from being held. Those who ‘wait’ in the qāvāh sense – who intertwine their hope with God’s promises – discover a strength that is not self-generated. We rise, not because circumstances have changed, but because we are lifted up by the everlasting God.
My Lord and God, who calls out the stars by name, forgive me for relying on my own vision, strength and courage to overcome the challenges I face. Help me to trust in you, to wait patiently on you and to hope only in you, until you raise me up again on eagle’s wings. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
Parting words
by Linda Macqueen
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Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me (John 14:1).
Read John 14:1–14
In the upper room, the air is thick with a dread you can almost smell. Lately, Jesus has been saying disturbing things – about betrayal, denial, even his death. And tonight, it all seems to be coming to a head. Like a deer with its nose to the breeze, the disciples sniff impending doom.
And Jesus … just imagine what he’s feeling as the sand in the hourglass runs thinner and faster. How will he use these precious final hours – these hours before everything they’d believed Jesus to be would crumble at the cross?
First, what doesn’t he do? He doesn’t give his friends a pep talk. He doesn’t give them dot-point summaries of the teachings he ran out of time to deliver. He doesn’t unlock the meanings of the parables they had failed to grasp. None of that will carry them through the future he sees for them. What they will need is Jesus himself – day by day, leading them to the Father’s heart, leading them home.
Jesus’ parting words are as gut-wrenchingly tender as they are desperately urgent: ‘Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me … I am the way, the truth and the life.’
The Greek word for ‘believe’ (pisteuō) has a deeper meaning than intellectual agreement. It means trust, confidence, leaning your whole weight on someone. On this darkest of nights, Jesus doesn’t ask his disciples to hum along with a creed, recite a teaching or sign up to a theological statement. He invites them to rest the full weight of their confusion and fear – and their future mission – on him.
Jesus’ invitation to his beloved friends on that dark night is the same as the one he offers to us, his beloved friends: ‘Lean on me. Put the full weight of your burden on me. Trust me … and me alone.’
My dear friend, Jesus. You see me when my heart trembles, when I struggle to understand, when nothing makes sense, when I cannot work out what you are doing. Help me to shun all the shaky props I have been leaning on, and to trust you alone – you, Jesus, in whom I see my Father; you, Jesus, who is leading me safely home. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.