J.A. Matteson
Many are the schemes of men under the sun, yet abruptly are they terminated. "Moreover, man does not know his time..." (Eccles. 9:12). For a season the hand of Providence is pleasurable and all is right in the world. The course of the day begins as any other, a delightful vestige from the plight that plagues other men. Your relationships are peaceful, satisfying, fulfilling. The physical aches and pains endured by the masses are foreign to you as good health defines your daily experience. Pleasurable comforts surround you and your heart is denied nothing which the eye deems desireable. You consider not the morrow as your yesterday's suggest to you a continuation of blissful living. Your storehouse is full, life is good; but you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. Grazing in green pastures the steer is satisfied with plentiful grass and streams of cool refreshing water, ignorantly unaware that tomorrow morning it will be led away to the slaughter house. Men living under the sun are as cattle, fattened up for the day of their death. Stupid is the man whose heart is satisfied with worldly delights but who is not right with God. In an instant the hand of Providence pivots and he is mortally captured in the trap of presumptive arrogance, the delight of life under the sun immediately evaporates as a flashing vapor on the searing hot desert floor. Blessed is the man who knows the LORD and whose delight is in Him. For in his eyes each day is a gift and he finds contentment in the wisdom of Providence, be it pleasurable or painful. And this is a gift from God, to him in whose soul He is well pleased, to know contentment in the hand of Providence, whatever his lot in life may be.
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