Read Ecclesiastes 7:13–29

When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.

Ecclesiastes 7:14

God balances our lives by giving us enough blessings to keep us happy and enough burdens to keep us humble. If all we had were blessings in our hands, we would fall right over, so the Lord balances the blessings in our hands with burdens on our backs. That helps to keep us steady, and as we yield to Him, He can even turn the burdens into blessings.

Why does God constitute our lives in this way? The answer is simple: to keep us from thinking that we know it all and that we can manage our lives by ourselves. “A man cannot discover anything about his future” (Eccl. 7:14). Just about the time we think we have an explanation for things, God changes the situation, and we have to throw out our formula. This is where Job’s friends went wrong: They tried to use an old road map to guide Job on a brand-new journey, and the map didn’t fit (Job 2:11—37:24). No matter how much experience we have in the Christian life, or how many books we read, we must still walk by faith.

Something to Ponder

During times of adversity how do you try to see what God may be trying to teach you?