Our Designed Purpose

If you want to take a walk through the human side of life, and get a picture of the range of humanity, read Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon one after another.

These three books are a great passage through the wants and needs of all people seen through God’s perspective.

When God moved men to set the order of the books of the Bible, He had Ecclesiastes placed between Proverbs and the Song of Solomon. These three books could be said to be Solomon’s daily diary.

Proverbs is Solomon’s public journal, the one he’d share with everyone. The Song of Solomon is his Dear Diary, the book he’d hide under his pillow and only read by flashlight under his blanket.

And Ecclesiastes is his notebook about succeeding in life, labor or leisure for all the wrong reasons. This is the manual he’d use in his boardroom as his employee's directives for discipline and motivation.

Ecclesiastes is the greatest book describing the futility

of the things people think is important.

We want order—that’s Proverbs. In Proverbs, we learn God’s design for proper conduct from childhood, through teen years, our marriage, our years of employment, our retirement, and old age.

We are starving for love—that’s learned in the Song of Solomon. In the Song of Solomon, we learn the heights and depths of a loving relationship between a man and woman and between Jesus and His bride, the church.

The book of Ecclesiastes is an instruction 

manual on how to misuse our life!

King Solomon was the first psychoanalyst. Wanting to know what life was like on earth without God, what purpose does anyone have apart from worshiping God, he gave it a thorough study. That must have been quite a challenge for a man who personally had a conversation with God twice. But laying aside his knowledge, Solomon looked into basic human desire and uncovered the gritty dirt inside of everyone. When concluding his study, in light of eternity, he realized life is way too short and frivolous to ignore God.

And he discovered that we accomplish nothing of lasting purpose apart from a relationship with Almighty God, who loved us enough to send His One and Only Son Jesus to die for us.

Solomon concludes this book telling us what is truly important.

"And further, my son, be admonished by these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all.

For God will bring every work into judgement,

including every secret thing. whether good or evil."

Ecclesiastes 12:12, 13, 14.

Because God created time, time-wise everything is important even down to every fraction of every second of our lives. God purposed our time for certain use, even our leisure. 

"And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the LORD and not to men" Colossians 3:23.

If you're in a right relationship with God, then enjoy His presence no matter what you are doing. God enjoys our time spent with Him, wherever we work, or when we play.

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Guest Post--The Decision: by Linda Handzel

This is guest blog from a friend of mine. Linda is a beautiful Christian with a powerful message. Her love of God motivates her to help others and her speaking engagements encourage many women with her enthusiastic hope and faith in God.

http://lindahandzel.com/blog/

The Decision: by Linda Handzel

    When I changed over to Christian High School for my senior year she was already a student there, starting her sophomore year. I always thought she was beautifully composed, nothing like me! She had a gorgeous alto singing voice and every note was smoothly controlled as she sang praises to God. We spent a lot of time together, but my brother Stan spent more time with Lori than I did. After they graduated from high school together he went away to college for a year. During that time I was able to steal more time with her. When Stan came home at Christmas he asked Lori to marry him and the next summer I was a bridesmaid in their wedding. The weekend after that she was the Matron of Honor in my wedding.

    My husband and I moved a few towns over when we got married, but Lori and Stan stayed in their home area. We had our first three children, and after a few years Stan and Lori gave birth to a boy, then a girl. Our lives got busier and we saw each other at various family holidays, but not as much as we would have liked.

    The summer that we both celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversaries we gathered together at a Fourth of July family picnic. That day Lori quietly pulled me aside to tell me the news that she had found a lump and the doctor had ordered a biopsy. Cancer ran in her family and she was scared. She was only 37 years old and I knew there was no way a woman that young could have breast cancer! Her sister had a lot of problems with cysts. Surely that would be the diagnosis!

    Mum’s voice was quiet and low when she called a few days later to tell me the results of Lori’s biopsy. “The news isn’t good. It’s aggressive Carcinoma.” I literally reeled and spun around with the impact of those words!

    My whole world came to a crashing halt. I couldn’t think of anything else– my brother’s beloved sweetheart had cancer! For several weeks my mind rocked and whirled with countless reactions. How could this possibly happen? I knew what I would say to someone who came to me with this diagnosis in their family: “God works all things out for His good. He’ll give you the strength to go through this. He’s still a healing God and you can believe Him to heal her. If He doesn’t heal her here, He’ll give you the strength to make it through. God will take care of their two children.” Endlessly those words ran ‘round and ‘round in my head. But I found myself questioning every phrase. Did I really believe this stuff? The verses that came to my mind from memory had never been tested like this before, and my faith was shaken to the core! I questioned the very foundation of all that I had embraced and lived for since childhood. What if God wasn’t really all I said He was? Did He really care? Was He able to heal? If he didn’t heal Lori, would He carry us through this horrifying journey? Just the thought of my broken-hearted brother and their two young children was more than I could fathom. Stan was a pastor! How could God even think of allowing Lori to have cancer?
Lori’s treatment plan was laid out: Radical mastectomy followed by radiation and chemotherapy. Dozens of foreign-sounding medical terms were thrown around while all of us reeled with the reality of the unfathomable. And I questioned: “WHERE IS GOD?”

    Mom and Dad struggled while watching their son’s heartbreaking trial. My whole family was cut to the core. I kept thinking of all the reasons this shouldn’t be happening to us: Mom and Dad had brought us up in a Christian home. We had all been saved as children. Each of us had chosen Christian mates, and now we were bringing our own children up in Godly homes. Each of us was deeply involved in our own church. In spite of doing all the ‘right’ things, it felt like everything was going wrong!

    Maybe God didn’t care! He sure wasn’t acting like He cared! Maybe I couldn’t trust Him at all! Maybe I could find someone else to trust. Maybe I had been wrong all these years, and God wasn’t what I thought He was. Maybe I should just give up on this whole thing called ‘Christianity’. It sure wasn’t working out for the ‘good’ that I wanted!

    For three weeks I wallowed through questions. I was so mired in anxious confusion that my children commented I was sighing all the time. I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders, and I was helpless to get it off! Nothing happened when I prayed, all the words seemed hallow. What was I going to do?

    Finally I started to recount the many ways God had clearly answered prayer throughout my life. Who else would answer like that? I had always known deep in my heart that God was with me, through every turn in my life. Who else was offering that kind of companionship? I had seen Him perform many impossible miracles in answer to prayer. Who else was capable of doing that?

    I was hanging laundry outside one day when one question suddenly stood out more than all the others: If I abandoned my belief in God, who could possibly take His place? All other thoughts came to a standstill as I wrestled with that one ultimate question: WHO ELSE IS THERE TO TRUST? Right there, on that sunny summer day I concluded that there was NO ONE! I felt a huge weight lift off my heart! Relief flooded my being when I firmly decided that I needed God, and only God! He was the only One who promised He would never leave me or forsake me. In all my life I had never felt abandoned by Him. He was the only One who said He wouldn’t give us more than we could bear.

    As I looked back over my short life I couldn’t think of one time that God had ever let me down. At different times in their short lives my children had been catastrophically ill, yet I felt God’s presence with me while I waited for Him to heal each sickness. I had prayed so many times for wisdom as a mother, and He had led me in ways I had never dreamed of! No matter how I searched, there was not even one moment in my life when I could say God had let me down! I decided I could believe the words of Isaiah that said: “His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. For as the Heavens are high above the earth, so are His thoughts higher than our thoughts!”

    YES, I was going to trust God! I was going to cling to His unchanging hand! I would believe that He would hold my family as we traveled this scary journey! I believed! I did believe and I held tight to those beliefs as I went forward with my family.

    T hat journey wasn’t easy because it was fraught with highs and lows. Lori finished the treatments and felt better for a few months. But sixteen months after the first biopsy, she was diagnosed with bone cancer. They tried other treatments. Stan took her to Mexico for alternative medicine. And we prayed. Oh how we prayed! I’m sure that many thousands of prayers were said, asking God to heal Lori. And He did heal her! At dawn on a quiet June morning the phone rang with the news that Lori had gone to Heaven. I remember so well that it was a wonderfully clear day, a perfect day to fly to Heaven! Lori was only sick with cancer for 23 months and then she was perfect.

    I thank God for the weeks I spent questioning the foundation of my faith. When I decided God was the only answer for me I had no idea I was deciding on a platform that would hold me without faltering for many tears to come. The next sixteen years after Lori died were filled with one heartbreak after another for our family. Too many times I’ve stared at a young body in a casket. In my mind it seems that only old people should be in caskets. Yet I know God is in control! We’ll understand it all when we meet Him (and our loved ones) in Glory! Until then, I still believe His Way Is Perfect!

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http://lindahandzel.com/blog/

 About Linda      

Linda Handzel grew up with two brothers in a Christian home, and began her personal relationship with Jesus Christ at a young age. Soon after she completed her college education, Linda noticed a handsome man in the young adult’s Sunday School class. This young man named Michael noticed her too, soon he asked Linda to go out with him. In only six months Michael asked Linda to marry him. Five months later they were married and began a family together. God blessed them with four children whom Linda home-schooled.

Just before their 24th wedding anniversary tragedy struck the Handzel household. Michael was killed instantly when someone hit him on his motorcycle and Linda had to deliver the news to her children: “Daddy’s gone to Heaven.” Through the dark days and long nights of grief, Linda has never been alone. God has faithfully led her through the many trials and transitions that were brought on by Michael’s death.

Linda’s public speaking ministry began soon after Michael died, and her message to women is that God loves us, and wants to help us through the hurts, heartaches and horrors of life. She shares both personal anecdotes and stories from the Bible, using them to illustrate that God has a perfect plan for each one of us.

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God Is Beyond That!

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" Genesis 1:1.

In Genesis 1:1, the word after the comma, is God. The verse could say God created the heavens and the earth and still be an absolutely truth without the qualifying phrase, in the beginning.

God created The beginning for us.

God exists. He does. He is. There was, and is, never a time when God did not exist. There was never a time before in the beginning. There is just God.

I have no problem believing God exists. I have no problem with God being. My mind accepts the fact that God can be God without me. God can be God without anyone at all. He isn’t lonely. He isn’t sad. He doesn’t live in abject isolation. He isn’t depressed by being the only Being. God is God, Supreme Majesty, perfectly perfect.

Science has taken pictures of space, the far-reaching space where no human can physically reach, and we still haven’t come to the end of it. Even as telescopes search the void around us, science says space is expanding but I cannot believe that. Genesis 1:1 says God created the heavens and the earth. It’s a done deal. Nothing is growing out there.

My speculative and imaginative mind likes to think God has His finger on the edge of all he created and is swirling it so that science is following the spin of space.

The Bible says God holds it all in His hand. The Bible says it, so I’m accepting it’s as big as it’s going to get.

God dwells somewhere beyond that.

Wow!

       I feel I need to add another awesome aspect to the wonder of God's amazing creation.

God didn't have to do anything to provide for Himself, He has everything. But...
"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;...'" Genesis 1:26.
"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Genesis 1:27.

He loved the man and woman He created. So after they sinned and made a mess of things, God sent His Son Jesus to restore the relationship again that was broken by sin.

"For God so loved the world, (mankind), that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" John 3:16.

God didn't have to do that--but He did.
Because He loves us so much, God created the way to salvation for all sinful mankind.

God, who is beyond all we can see--did that out of love!

WOW!!

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