Freedom to Enjoy Life

Booker T. Washington in his book up from slavery tells what the night was like that the slaves in 1863 heard about the emancipation proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Here's what he writes in that book. There was no sleep that night. All was excitement and expectancy. Early in the morning we were all sent for. The proclamation was read and we were told that we were free and could go, win and where we pleased. There was great rejoicing followed by wild scenes of ecstasy. Difficult for us in this day to imagine what that must have been like to receive that proclamation of freedom of emancipation. There's a sense in which the book of ecclesiasties is to me like an emancipation proclamation. What God is declaring to us is that you are free to enjoy life. You are free to live life as I have intended for you to live it. If you are in Christ, if your relationship with God is what it should be, then God is telling you you should enjoy life. Now either many of us have never heard that or it's never really sunk in or we've never taken it to heart or we just refuse to believe it. That life is to be fully and thoroughly enjoyed in God's good grace with his pleasure and smile upon us. Solomon in the book of ecclesiasties is showing us just how to do that. We have journeyed through this book now for several months and as we are in now the last section of the book Solomon is pulling together all of the strands of truth from the book of ecclesiasties to help us understand how now it all fits together and this is how we are to live life. He has talked about the fact that life cannot be lived appropriately in any sense without first of all a relationship with God. Knowing that you are right with him, when you are right with him, when you've trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior accepted him into your heart and life for the forgiveness of your sins, believed in his death on the cross to free you from sins guilt and condemnation. When you've done that, then life is now set free for you to live with enjoyment. Solomon is telling us how to do that. We saw last week that he laid a foundation for us and really when you talk about a philosophy of life, a biblical worldview or how you view life, it really is comprised of two parts. One is the foundation and that has to do with your beliefs and attitudes about life. What you believe about life and your attitude toward life will drive the way you live. The second part of a philosophy of life, a biblical philosophy of life, is the actions that then come from that belief system. Both are together, both have to be there. What Solomon has been telling us in the first six verses as we saw last week, he's been laying the foundation. He's been giving us those foundational beliefs and attitudes that must that we must then build on to live life. We saw last week that he says basically God is in control of the uncertainties of life. One thing however is certain and that is death and as we look that in the face, then we have the opportunity to prepare for that and know that we're ready to meet God. Another foundational truth, man is utterly simple and that explains the moral madness in our culture and in our world today. We are at heart sinners that need to be forgiven and declared righteous before God. We need his grace and his help and then Solomon said last week in spite of the hard realities of life, in spite of the difficulties, tragedies, heartaches in life, life is infinitely valuable because as long as there is life, there is still hope. As long as there is life, there's still opportunity. To change come to Christ, to begin living for him, to make an impact on this world and to live in a way that will count for eternity. So that's the foundation that we build on. Those four foundational truths. Now what he's going to do in the rest of the book is build eight stories on that foundation, an eight story structure that enables us to understand how now God wants us to act, how he wants us to live based on that foundation. And what he's going to tell us is this story number one, be joyful. Then number two, be enthusiastic, then be involved, then be realistic, then be wise, then be bold and then repeated, be joyful and then he will end the book with this exhortation be godly. Those are the eight levels built on the foundation of a biblical philosophy of life. That's what we'll be developing in the next few weeks as I've charted out the schedule with other services involved. June 30th will be our Lord willing last day in the book of Ecclesiastes. We're going to develop that eightfold eight story structure that Solomon is saying, here's how you are to live life. What he's saying basically is having looked those foundational truths in the face and looked them squarely in the face and realized that there are uncertainties in life. Yes, but God's in control of those and death is certain and you've got to face up to that and we are sinners by nature, but God's given us a remedy for that. And those kinds of things looking that square in the face, now he's going to say this is how you're supposed to live. Look at the first word in verse seven of Ecclesiastes chapter nine. Every Bible open the first word is go. And again, it would be easy to slip over that if we were not careful. But what that word tells us basically is what we would say today, we would say, come on now. Solomon is grabbing us by the throat and getting our attention. He's saying, now I've given you the basis for living life. Now come on now, live it. Go out there and live it. Go out and live it as God wants you to. And the first thing he's going to tell us is that we are to live it with enjoyment. Now I want to deal with something at the very beginning here that I think is important because I know that some of you may feel that that's awful man-centered. John, you tell me that what God really wants me to do is to live with enjoyment. That seems like that's centered on me, self-centered man-centered. But it's not at all. Not if you understand that the way Solomon is portraying it in the book, by the way, anything God commands us to do glorifies him. So if God commands us to live with enjoyment, then if I do that, I'm glorifying him. I'm not, that's not man-centered. It's the same thing that Paul is saying when he says to us in the book of Colossians, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart because you know that you're going to receive a reward and inheritance from God for it is the Lord Christ that you serve. It's the same thing that Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10 when he says, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. It's the same thing. If God commands me to do something, if he commands me, as we'll see, to live with joy, then to do that is to glorify him, to obey him is to glorify him. That's not man-centered at all. It's living out the life God wants us to live and commands us to live. So don't think of this as some humanistic man-centered philosophy. This is the way we live to the glory of God for his eternal pleasure and glory is to live with enjoyment. But what does that mean? What kind of life is God telling us to live when he says, live with enjoyment? Let's break it down. Just three verses this morning. Don't let you off easy. Three verses. But let's break them down and see four keys to living with enjoyment that Solomon gives us. Key number one, find joy in the routine of life. In the every day, small things, the routines of life, find joy there. Look at verse seven. He says, go or come on now. Now that you've seen the foundation, come on, come on. Let's live this way. Eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart. I'm going to stop right there because the first key to living with enjoyment is to find joy in the routine of life, eating and drinking. The most routine thing we do. It's daily, it's several times daily. For some of you, it's probably more times daily than you should. But it's daily. It's a routine. It's something that we do every day. And so that's just an example of the routine of life. Nothing could be more routine than sitting down to a meal. We've done that hundreds of times. Many, many times. It's just a routine. So this sounds like such a simple solution, such a no-brainer. I mean, it almost seems not particularly brilliant or insightful. And for that very reason, we miss what Solomon is really saying because it's so easy to pass over this and get to what he really means, what he's really saying. I don't want us to do that. If you have been alert through this book, you realize he's been hammering this all through the book. So it's not something just a glaze over. This is an important part of the book. I have, I have suggested it is the thread that ties the book together because it occurs so many times in the book. We're going to take a look at them quickly. Chapter two. Just to give you a feel. Look at it. Chapter two. Come on. I want to hear pages turning. There you go. Chapter two, verse 24. You're with me? All right. Verse 24. A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God. Then look down at Chapter three, verse 12. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live that each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil. This is the gift of God. Chapter three, verse 22. So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? This is the only one of these texts, by the way, that does not mention the routine of eating and drinking, the very simple thing of life. But the idea of enjoyment of all of life is there. We see it again in Chapter five and verse 18. This is what I have observed to be good, that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink, to find satisfaction in their toil, some labor under the sun during the few days of life that God has given them for this is their lot. By the way, hang on to that phrase too. You're seeing that come up a good bit. Then Chapter eight, Chapter eight, verse 15, is the last time we saw it. Solomon says, so I commend the enjoyment of life because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than here it is to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of this life God has given them under the sun. So we've seen it like five times already in the book. We see it again here in Chapter nine. It will come up again. We will see it again in Chapter 11. It is the thread that ties the whole book together. It is, I believe, the theme of the book to find enjoyment, which is not just hilarious good time, party life. That's not the idea at all. Enjoim it in life really has to do more with meaning and purpose and fulfillment and finding what you're here for, what God created you for. Enjoim it in life is what Solomon wants us to experience, what God says to experience. Now the reason why he is pounding this, hammering it into our parts over and over again to find joy in the routine of life is this. This is the reason why worry and fretting about life has ruined many a good meal. Brooding over the uncertainties of life, anger over the hardships of life has ruined many a good meal and many a good day and caused us to take our eyes off of many of the blessings of God and his goodness in our lives even when things are difficult. That's the perspective. We need a mind and a heart and a spirit that is at ease and that is free to really enjoy the simple things such as eating and drinking and all the other daily routines of life that we can come to see as not the drudgery of life but as the blessing of life as God's good gifts of life. That's the perspective that Solomon wants us to have. Please don't live your life waiting for the next big thing to happen that will bring you happiness, that promotion, that new stage of life, that new person in your life, that graduation, that magic age at which you get a driver's license or whatever or that next vacation. Please don't live your life waiting for the next big thing to happen hoping it will bring you some meaningful film that enjoy. Solomon is saying is where joy is really to be found is in the routine of life, accepting everything that God gives you as his good gift, good and perfect gift. Find joy in the routine of life is what Solomon says. That's how you enjoy life. But notice the second key. The second key is to accept the approval of God. Accept the approval of God. You see it there in verse 7, go eat your food with gladness, drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Now be careful with that. It might be easy to misunderstand that. You could misread that to say, oh, so whatever I do, God says is okay, right? No. Again, every passage of scripture has to be taken in its context. If you just rip a verse out of the body of verses that it's found in, you're probably going to misunderstand it. So let's go back and our thinking to the thought that Solomon has been developing that this ties right along with. Remember back in chapter 8, Solomon said, just from a surface perspective, just in looking at life, sometimes it doesn't seem fair. Sometimes it seems like the righteous are getting what the wicked deserve and the wicked get what the righteous deserve. And there seems to be no justice or fairness in life, maybe even God doesn't seem to be treating you fairly. So is it really worthwhile to live righteously? Is it really worthwhile to know and to put all of our life in commitment to Him? Is it really worth doing that? Now that's the context in which He says this. Because as He has already concluded at the end of chapter 8, it is worthwhile because we will face Him someday and He will make everything right then. But now here's another reason. It is worthwhile to live righteous because in this life right now, you have the approval, the acceptance of God if you know Him. If you've trusted Christ as your Savior, it makes a huge difference in the way you should see life because you've been accepted by God, you've been declared righteous, you've been put into His family, made a child of His, you are under His favor. That's the sense in which Solomon is saying, He's already approved you, what you do. It's the same thing Paul was saying in Ephesians 1 and 6 when he says in our position in Christ, we are accepted in the Beloved. It's the same thing Paul was saying in Romans 8 when he says, if God is for us, who can be against us? Who is He that condemns? It is Christ that died, rather that justifies us. And then he goes on to say, if he has saved us, if he has given us his son, then will he not also with him freely give us all things? The blessings of God, the blessings of life come to those who know Christ. And if you're in Christ, there's no condemnation, there should be no guilt, there should be no view of God that says, I'm living under His wrath or His judgment, afraid He's going to zap me, that's not true of you if you've trusted Christ as your Savior. You are approved of Him, you are accepted by Him, you're forgiven, there's no condemnation. You see, this thought really touches on our whole view of God and our relationship to Him. Some people even believers have the wrong view of God and relationship with Him. If you've trusted Christ as your Savior, you are approved by God, you are accepted by Him, you are dearly loved by Him, you are declared righteous by Him. You don't have to live under a ton of guilt wondering if you're in the family, you are. Romans 8 makes it clear you're eternally secure in Christ. Some people have this idea of God. He's an old man with a long flowing beard, a frown on his face, a club over a shoulder that has a railroad spike through it. And he's just watching with that frown to see if you ever smile or enjoy life or if you ever feel like that things are right and he's going to hit you with that club, especially the part where the spike is. That's a lot of people's view of God and that is not at all what the Bible portrays for those who are in Christ, for those who are in Christ, those who know Jesus as Savior, your record is wiped clean as far as sin is concerned, you are accepted in the beloved in Christ, you are completely forgiven. And so what Solomon is saying, come on now, live with the approval of God, not thinking that you somehow are still under His wrath or His judgment. Now the sinner who has not trusted Jesus as Savior has every right to fear the wrath of God. That's the other side of the story and the Bible is clear on that as well. But if you've trusted Christ, that's gone. Your wrath or the wrath of God has already been satisfied for you through Christ and you live now with His acceptance and approval. I had a story at one time, well, two Irishmen who were riding a tandem bicycle up a hill and this tandem bicycle was one that had one guy in the front and one guy in the back and they're both peddling and they're going off a steep incline and it's a pretty, pretty good hill. So they get to the top and the guy in front is just sweating profusely and panting and saying, man, that was an awful hard hill to climb and the guy in back said, yeah, it was and if I hadn't had my feet on the brakes, we would have gone backwards for sure. Some of you are living that way. Some of you are living constantly and uncertainly in fear with your feet on the brake fear that something's going to happen. You're going to slip backward into hell someday. You don't need to live that way. Live with the approval and the acceptance of God. If you know Christ is your savior, there's no condemnation for you. There's no wrath for you anymore. You need to live with that and that's a key element of living with joy. You don't need to live with dread and fear. Live with joy because God has smiled upon you in Christ and forgiven you and made you his child and he loves you dearly. Don't make your life miserable because you're afraid of what God thinks of you. Live with the approval except the approval of God and you can live with joy. Third key. Make everyday special. Make everyday special. This is one we all need to hear. This is one I need to hear. I've preached this to myself every day this week. Verse 8. Always be clothed in white and always anoint your head with oil. Now Solomon is speaking within his own culture using terminology that people who in his day would read this would fully understand and probably would break out into big smile. We don't get it as well because we don't understand the cultural idioms, the terminology that are used here. In ancient days, particularly in the Old Testament, people typically had one special garment that they reserved for festive occasions and it was typically a white garment. It was the garment that you would use not for everyday work, not for everyday life but the garment you would pick out special for a festive occasion, a birthday and an anniversary, a trip to Jerusalem to the temple to be a part of one of the festivals, one of the feast days of Israel. You would save that garment for those days. Many of you can remember when you were growing up. You had one special shirt or one special dress and that was that was it. I mean when we were little kids, they only took family pictures on Easter. It doesn't only have time you had any new clothes, there was only time you had anything that looked nice. The rest of the time was pretty dumpy but that's when all the family pictures were taken. I can see pictures of us when we were little kids and I know when it was taken, it was on Easter Sunday, out in the side yard. That's when it was taken. I can remember when I was a kid, I had three pair of pants and three shirts. They were all black pants and three shirts that were without wore this to school all the time. Now I didn't grow up real poor but I can remember things just weren't like they are today and if you lived and grew up even earlier than I grew up you probably can respond or understand better what Solomon's saying about that. That one special outfit that you kept for special occasions. You didn't wear it any other time. For some of you growing up the only time you ever wore shoes was on those special occasions. We are in West Virginia remember. Also on those special occasions you would treat yourself with oils. He talks about anointing your head with oil. He's talking about olive oil and other oils that would be used kind of like perfume or cologne or aftershave. You see again in the ancient world people did not bathe every day like we do today and I hear some of you out there saying let's go back. Let's go back to that. But on special occasions they would really spruce up nice and part of that would not only be the white garment but it would be the fresh bath and the use of oils on the head the hair on the face the body kind of like a body wash and a body cologne that would just give you such a fresh look and smell and those were used only for special occasions. Now with that background in view look again at what Solomon is saying always be clothed in white always anoint your head with oil. He's using terminology that would be clear in his day of thinking only of festive occasions special occasions and what he's saying is make every day special that's how he would say it today. Always dress in white always anoint your head with oil. Solomon is saying do that every day now here's how it translates to our culture today some of you live for the weekend some of you live to get off work on Friday we've got a whole restaurant chain that's built on that concept right TGI Friday thank goodness it's Friday it's not the way probably the world would say it but I don't want to use his name and name. TGI Friday man if I can just make it the Friday weekend is what I look forward that's what I live for you know why Wednesday is called hump day because you've worked so hard to get to the middle of the weekend now it's downhill slide toward the weekend. Yeah the weekend some of you live for the weekend some of you live for that next vacation some of you live for that holiday when you have a long weekend. Now that's okay understand that I understand that we all need breaks in our lives where the difficult intense routines are broken up a little bit and that's a good thing but what Solomon is saying is don't live by the beer commercial mentality it's Friday five o'clock man work is done let's go to the bar let's get our Miller High Life let's have a weekend don't live by that philosophy Solomon saying first of all it's the wrong way to have joy but secondly it's the wrong way to look at life that there are only certain occasions festive occasions special occasion party time that will bring me joy Solomon is saying you can have joy every day make every day special say how do I do that by looking for the hand of God and go back to those routine things of life you set down to a meal God has provided you what you have as little or as much as it may be be thankful for the routine blessings of life drain the richness out of every moment and day of life as the gift of God whatever he has sent your way and whatever you're facing right now you can see each day as his good gift now I'll be the first to admit to you I don't do that every day I'm no different than anybody else sitting here so I need this so I need this over and over again I need to remind myself where that white garment every day and not your head with oil every day make every day special fourth key to living life with enjoyment is to enjoy your marriage or for those of you who are not married I've stuck in parenthesis your family although Solomon talks about marriage it's obviously he's talking about family relationships notice what he says in verse 9 enjoy life with your wife whom you love all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun all your meaningless days I want to come back to the word meaningless in a few moments I think it's a rather unfortunate translation in the in-i-v at this point this understands the Hebrew word hevel but we'll come back to that basically the idea is this enjoy life with your wife whom you love all the days of this fleeting life this fast life that God's given you under the sun all your fleeting days what he's saying is enjoy your marriage or your family if you're not married enjoy your family here's the idea marriage can be the greatest blessing in life or it can be the greatest curse in life think about it you're gonna spend the rest of your life with that person you will see them every day they will know you better than anyone else knows you they will see you at your best they will see you at your worst they will know you inside out there's potential for great joy and blessing there there's potential for great heartache and trouble there it's what you make it it's how you look at it it is whatever you make of your family and what Solomon is saying is enjoy your wife your family your husband your children your parents every day he says all the days of this life that God has given you under the sun on this earth and it even goes a little deeper than that the word enjoy is a good translation of the word but the Hebrew word literally means see if that is the literal words see life with your wife now we wouldn't get that because we don't understand that that manner of speaking and that's the reason why most translations use the word enjoy today so that we get what Solomon is saying but in that day the word see life the idea of seeing life meant much more than just open your eyes and look around you okay I saw it so what else is new no to see life was to to have an understanding a perspective on life to experience it in a more comprehensive manner than what we typically think of to see it as the gift of God to experience the full range of emotion it's the same thing Jesus said when he said love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength we love God with all of our mind all of our intellect we love him with all of our emotion it's a part of the heart soul what does it mean to love God with all of your emotion it means to see all of life as a gift from him to be enjoyed fully to express the full range of joy in the Lord and then to be honest with him about the pain of life to be honest with him about that but to bring it to him so it means to see life in a more comprehensive way than what we typically do even emotionally to enjoy experience the full range of joy and passion in life and when it has to do with your family so many families forget this leave this forsake this so many couples forget what it's like to enjoy each other and so they they stop dating okay that may sound a little corny stop spending time together I still like to call it date night so many couples stop doing the special things for each other that show each other they love each other stop romancing stop having fun and laughing together not Solomon saying is a part of the enjoyment of life is the people that God has put closest to you enjoy them laugh with them love them experience the full range of life as partners together Martin Luther was a great example of this Martin Luther the father of the German Reformation in the early 1500s was a fascinating man I love the the life of Martin Luther I love reading and studying about his life every year at MCA I teach a history class a session on Martin Luther's life and I just love reading about his life he was a fascinating man of course we know him as the father of the German Reformation the man who even as a monk in the Roman Catholic Church began to see the inconsistencies and as he studied to teach in the University of Wittenberg the book of Romans and then the book of Galatians he came to see that salvation was not through all the works that he was being taught it was through faith in Christ and he did realize that it was a center that he needed Christ and he came to faith in Christ himself and then he began to teach that to others in 1517 he nailed 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg which was kind of the town center and basically what that was was it was a challenge to the Roman Catholic Church I have 95 disagreements with you I wanted to debate him with somebody and it wouldn't take long for the church to send someone to debate him on a couple of occasions Luther was a hard man he grew up hard he was tough he went through a lot of struggles a lot of persecution after one of his trials that the Catholic Church put him on and the emperor after he was tried said anybody that finds Luther can kill him I'm removing my protection from him he was abducted by friends and taken into isolation for a year he wore disguises he was given a different name George they called him for a year they tucked him away in a castle he never went out in public that man lived a hard life during that year by the way that he began translating the Bible into German one of his greatest accomplishments I have a book in my library called our neighbor Martin Luther written by a neighbor and his wife who viewed and watched the home life of Martin Luther which by the way was one of his greatest contributions to the German Reformation remember he was a monk you know who he married a former nun two people that were barred against marrying came together and got married in 1525 I want you to listen to what that neighbor said about his his home life Luther's house is like the sacred hearth of Whitonburg and of all the land there in the winter evenings he welcomes his friends to the cheerful room with the large window and sometimes they sing good songs or holy hymns in parts accompanied by the loot and harp music at which dr. Luther is sure King David would be amazed and delighted could he rise from his grave and then he quotes Luther since there can have been none so fine in his day the devil Luther says always flies from music especially from sacred music because he is such a despairing spirit and cannot bear joy and gladness this neighbor goes on to describe Luther in his family life in the summer days he sits under the pear tree in his garden while Katie the his wife's nickname while Katie works beside him where he plants seeds and makes a fountain often he talks to her and his friends about the wonders of beauty God has set in the humblest flowers and the picture of the resurrection he gives us an every delicate twig that in spring bursts from the dry brown stems of winter more and more we see what a good wife God has given him in Katharina von Bora with her cheerful firm and active spirit and her devoted affection for him already she has the management of all the houses or all the finance of the household a very necessary arrangement if the house of Luther is not to go to ruin dr. Luther would give everything even to his own clothes and furniture to anyone in distress and he will not receive any payment either for his books or for teaching the students she speaking of his wife she is a companion for him more over and not a mere listener which he likes however much he may laugh at her eloquence and if you know anything about the Luther's you know that she sometimes would give him what for and let him know where he stood and he loved it he laughed at her eloquence in in doing that the belief among us this neighbor writes is that there are few happier homes than dr. Luther's if at any time Katharina finds him oppressed with a sadness too deep for her ministry to reach by the way Luther had incredible fits of depression throughout his ministry but if his wife finds him that way she quietly creeps out and calls justice Jonas or some other friend to come and cheer the doctor this neighbor concludes the Christian married life as he says is a humble and holy life well indeed is it for our German Reformation that its earthly center is neither a throne nor a hermitage monastery but a lowly Christian home one of the greatest things Martin Luther did was to provide a model of a happy home and he lived out what Solomon was saying he rejoiced and enjoyed every day did he have some hard times some tough times did he struggle with depression yes he did he did there were times so fierce in his life when he was so down that he thought the devil was in the very room with him and he would throw things at him spiritual warfare was very real to Martin Luther but he knew what it was like to enjoy his family find joy in the routine of life except the approval of God make every day special enjoy your marriage or your family why why do that very quickly and closing Solomon gives us three reasons why we should enjoy life as God commands us the first is this life is too fleeting to waste on negativity you see the word meaningless again there in verse 9 enjoy life with your wife whom you love all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun all your meaning this days I said that's probably an unfortunate translation it's really really is it's the word we've seen a number of times before translated in the King James vanity the word literally Hebrew word literally means empty actually the word is a word for wind or vapor but every good Hebrew lexicon dictionary of the Hebrew language will tell you that when the word is used metaphorically like it is in Hebrews it me or like it is in Ecclesiastes it means fleeting and so the idea here is not all meaningless days terrible days the idea is fleeting days they're gone too quickly to live them with negativity enjoy your family because they will grow up too quickly you will get old too quickly they will die too quickly so enjoy the days you have with them because they're fleeting life's too fleeting to waste on negativity second reason Solomon gives us for enjoying life is that enjoyment is God's reward for this life you see it there where he says this is your lot in life again a favorite expression in Ecclesiastes it means the portion that God has measured out to you it is a reward when we think of rewards we think of the judgment seat in heaven rewards for the way we've lived what Solomon is saying and what the Bible affirms in other places is that God also has rewards for you in this life and what is it the enjoyment of life the gift of seeing that every day and every part of life is a gracious and a good gift from God that's a reward that's an inheritance a portion that God's measured out to you third reason joy enjoyment eases the the trials of life or the toil of life this is your lot in life and in your toilsum labor under the sun come on let's face it there is enough intensity in life anyway without making it more miserable there's enough hardship in life there's enough difficulty in life there's enough toil in life that's why people do look forward to Friday that's why they do look forward to the next vacation why because life is sometimes hard and it is tedious and toilsum and this book has fully recognized that but it also recognizes that if you see every day is a gift from God to be enjoyed it will ease the toil of life it will release you from the drudgery of being under that toil don't make life miserable live life with enjoyment even the routine things of life under the approval of God knowing that you're his child and his smile is on you make every day special and enjoy your family because life is fleeting life is fleeting and it is hard enjoyment enjoyment is the lubricant of life the oil that keeps the friction of the engine from getting things too hot and blowing the whole thing up enjoyment is that oil that lubricant that God has given us for our lives let's let's pray together Father how we need these words because sometimes in the pain and difficulty of life we forget to look for your hand we forget to revel in your good gifts we forget to take joy in the fact that we are yours that there's no condemnation there's no guilt hanging over us we are your children thank you Father for the good gifts of life you've given us most of all the gift of your son in our salvation which makes everything else possible I pray Father that you would help us to live by your word whatever we do do it all to the glory of God see all of life as a gift from you to be enjoyed help us to live that way we ask in Jesus name amen