Happy Fourth of July!
You may have noticed there was no devotion in your inbox last week. We were in Orlando on a family mission trip with our church. Once our mission work was complete, we spent one day in Disney World. It was the kids’ first time there and my first time in 20+ years. Mark loves Disney and was eager to share this love with the kids. At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I needed a little more coaxing. I just don’t really like crowds or being super hot so…. but overall it really was a wonderful, exhausting, and memorable day. Driving home that night, we tallied how many rides we had done and counted 15. This felt like a great achievement to me, especially given my reticence about the whole Disney adventure.
Forgive me if I am losing you in this Disney talk, but it is relevant for our scripture today… Ride number one for us was Pirates of the Caribbeans simply because it had no line and the one we wanted next to it was closed. Honestly, I found it quite creepy. But it was fun to hop on a ride quickly and float through the caves seeing the different scenes from the movie. The kids were very into it. Fast forward to 5 pm that day, we had just finished dinner in a Mexican restaurant in EPCOT. The restaurant had a ride which carried us in a float through various rooms themed for Central America. As we finished up this ride (#13 of the day), my daughter looked up at me and remarked “so do all these rides just have you float down a river and look at stuff?” I was amused by her comment because we did in fact do a fair amount of those types of rides. While they had a wonderful time that day and ate up each of the rides, their amusement definitely waned by the evening as we threw them in ride after ride.
We are so grateful for our day in Disney and even more grateful to my wonderful mother in law for agreeing to come with us, but I can’t help thinking about our verses in Ecclesiastes today. Life can offer us some pretty wonderful things - whether that be a day in Disney, vacations to beautiful places, strong friendships, tasty food, and the list goes on. Solomon affirms that the world can offer us some great things BUT he says all of it is “from the hand of God.” Without Him we could do none of those things and doing them without Him is meaningless. So a question we have been pondering this week is:
What does it look like to acknowledge the hand of God in the “bests” that the world has to offer?
Admittedly when things are good, I tend to operate on autopilot and be consumed with what I am doing, not thinking of heavenly things. Verse 26 says “for without him, who can eat, drink, or find enjoyment?” When God is not at the center, we can never be fully satisfied. The 8th(?) water ride of Disney was not nearly as satisfying for the kids as the first or second. We know our worldly pleasures will not keep us satisfied- but rather than reject the worldly pleasures God has made, we can hold them loosely and give Him the honor due His name!
Anne
Pictured above- my MIL captured this candid after dinner. Temp had dropped from an afternoon storm, stomachs were full, and everyone (me!) was a little happier :)
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