![[Photo of a Scripture verse]](https://www.deankwilson.com/Blog_images/Ecclesiastes_11_5_v02.jpg)
| “As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” |
| —Ecclesiastes 11:5 |
By now, we can all agree that King Solomon most obviously enjoyed sharing pithy sayings. In today’s passage, Solomon continues to immortalize certain proverbs that clearly relate to his examination of a life “under the sun” without a relationship with God. Here’s what Solomon wrote, as recorded in Ecclesiastes 11:1-6:
Ship your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return. Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land. If clouds are full of water, they pour rain on the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there it will lie.
Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.
Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.
In this passage, King Solomon places his tongue firmly in his cheek and wisely contrasts certain things that, “under the sun”—or, with a life without a relationship with God—humans can know with things that humans cannot possibly know. In so doing, Solomon heightens an awareness of his principal premise, namely that life without a relationship with God is meaningless, as casting into the wind.
We do well, as we begin another day, to clearly recognize how differently our worldview becomes once we have a relationship with the God who loves us and sent His precious Son to die in our place.
