Starting backwards

Today’s sermon was the last in the series on [Ecclesiastes](http://ebible.com/bible/ecclesiastes). It’s a sobering book which can sound pretty depressing, summed up by the phrase “Everything is meaningless!”.
This tone of despair sounds strange as it comes from King Solomon, who you’d imagine was the smartest, richest King of Israel. He realised all his accomplishments would come to nothing in the end. However, as our guest speaker Rev Doctor John Benson (former St George’s vicar) noted, it all makes sense at the end as it reminds us that these things *are* meaningless… without God.
Rev Benson had some good take-home points. He mentioned Stephen Covey (author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) who encourages us to begin with the end in mind. When we die, how would we like our eulogy to be made – by family, friends, colleagues, community? What legacy would we like to leave behind?
For us believers, he added a 5th person – God. Because the first 4 types of people may not know all the terrible things we’ve done, and even if they did, they wouldn’t say it at our funeral. But God would know everything.
So how would we re-prioritise our lives, based on these 4+1 people?

Similar Posts

  • God’s work in progress

    Got back from Kevin’s talk, had dinner and started working on the new church website while listening/watching some “TV” on Joost. A few weeks ago, and up to a couple days ago, I was quietly freaking out about configuring Joomla 1.5’s default template designs. Yes, the default templates are standards compliant, which is good. However,…

  • Blessings and wrath

    Skeptics, don’t ask me where I got these messages from. Message received by senior church member during our house blessing: The fish in our Koi pond shall grow to have unusual patterns. Everything that lives in there, shall flourish. (I am logging this down so we can keep track of it when something happens) Message…

  • A thought for safety

    It was raining again, for most of yesterday. And I neglected to buy enough parking coupons to last me the whole day at work – only until lunch time. I picked up some new coupons near the office, but as the rain was still going strong I decided not to brave it back up the…

  • Remembered

    We were deeply shocked and saddened to hear that Sue Hixson, a long-serving member of my church, passed away suddenly. She was travelling back to the US to be with her daughter, who was expecting her first child. She didn’t get to see her granddaughter, who was named after her. It must be a difficult…

  • It’s time you knew

    This morning I awoke, knowing that I had nearly forgotten to attend a meeting to prepare for my church’s forthcoming Alpha course. I didn’t really want to go. In fact I’d never have volunteered myself as a helper if my priest hadn’t put my name on the list. I was honoured when he asked, but…