Today's Scripture Reading (January 29, 2026): Ecclesiastes 3
If you are on social media, you have probably
played the game. You know the one; you are shown a page of letters, and the
first three words that you see in this mass of letters are your reality, or
maybe your future, things that will dominate your life in 2026. By the way, I
took this test, and my first three words were Power, Creation, and Breakthrough.
A close fourth was Family. But the problem with the test is that it is skewed.
Look as hard as you want, you won't find Bankruptcy, Destitution, or Divorce. The
word on the screen only contains good things. It is the same with those tests
that claim to predict the future based on your name. I have seen your responses
to these exercises, and the results are always good. This year, you will
finally get a brand-new house or a new fortune. I have never seen you post that,
based on your name, you are destined for sickness, death, or even broken
relationships this year. The tests are fixed. And by the way, some of you took
the same test at the end of 2019, and none of you revealed that what was in
your future for 2020 was a pandemic.
But in Ecclesiastes 3, we find a mirror,
because it is all there: Birth, Death, Planting, Harvesting, Killing, Healing,
tear down, build up, weep, dance, scatter stones, gather stones, embracing,
refrain from embracing, search, stop searching, keep, discard, tear, mend,
silence, speaking, love, hate, war, and peace. Whatever you feel, it is
there.
On August 2,
1990, Iraq invaded the independent State of Kuwait. I have to admit that at the
time I didn't know where Kuwait was, but I do now. But Iraq's action set up a
moral crisis inside of me. I may not have known where Kuwait was, but Iraq, at
the time, had one of the top militaries among nations not named the United
States, Russia, or China. They may not have been the strongest nation in the
world, but they were the strongest among the non-superpower nations. Kuwait was
not. The Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq became the grounds for the invasion of Iraq
by the United States. One of the things that I remember, and that left its mark
on me, was a conversation that I had with a young friend. I know, back then I
was young, but he was younger. He opposed the United States' action. I did not.
I wasn't in favor. I have admitted that I am a reluctant pacifist, but the
question that bothered me was "do we not have some responsibility to stand
up for those who are the weak, the ones that Jesus called the least of these.
Did Kuwait deserve to be demolished because it was weak but rich?
I must admit, I
have a bias. You see, I am a Canadian. I belong to a prosperous nation that is
militarily somewhere in the middle - upper middle of military nations. But this
I know: we are no match for our neighbors to the south, the United States,
which still seems intent on taking us over. If President Trump decided today
that he was going to make us the fifty-first state, there is very little that
we could do to resist him. I hope that as the United States attacked, the world
would come to our defense, but I don't know of any nation that wants to get
into a fight with Donald Trump's country.
The thought that
kept going through my mind in 1990 was, "Does not Kuwait deserve some sort
of defense?" To say no almost seemed an act of cowardice. I want peace,
but sometimes I wonder whether we need to advocate for those who cannot
advocate for themselves. And at that moment, I wondered about Solomon's words
that there was "a time for war and a time for
peace" (Ecclesiastes 8:8b).
Let me be clear, I want peace.
Pete Seeger's song "Turn, Turn, Turn" depends on Ecclesiastes 3 for
its lyrics. But in the closing words of the song, Seeger adds, "A time for
peace, I swear it's not too late." Me too. Maybe I would change one
word. "A time for peace, I pray it's not too late."
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 4
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