Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Danger of Dreams | The Writings | Ecclesiastes 7

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

What do you want people to say at your funeral? That you were a dreamer or a doer? That you wanted to make a difference or that you actually did? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Ecclesiastes 7 encourages us to put action to our dreams for the sake of God's Kingdom. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ecclesiastes 7

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. I'm a millennial. That means that I grew up in a generation of dreamers, a generation of people who wanted to change the world, people who believe they could change the world, a generation that's become most known for its willingness to stand up against what it sees as wrong. Of course, that's how we thought about ourselves when we were teenagers and in our 20s, but I can't say that it's really panned out. I mean, maybe that's something everybody feels in their 20s.

What I can say now in my mid-30s is that the world is not a noticeably better place than when I was 19. Instead of activism, much of my generation has practiced slackivism. We post things on social media to show we're for a cause, and we think that we've done something to change the world. But the truth is that we've just mostly virtue signaled. And the causes many of my generation have fought for, if I'm going to be honest, they're confused at best and terribly misguided. at worst. You see, there's a cost to dreaming. There's a cost to having a vision. If, if, if, the dream isn't followed by action. Ideas are lighter than air. Actions come with a heavy cost. In Ecclesiastes 7, the preacher, who's the author of Ecclesiastes, well, the preacher reflects on the way

dreams can distract us from everyday reality. He shows us that you can't take the measure of a dream at its inception. You can only measure a dream at the end by what really happened. It may be a dream of a changed world or a changed life or a dream of a changed family or a business or whatever your specific dream is. But what all dreams share in common is that dreams change nothing apart from action. Let's read what the preacher says in Ecclesiasties 7. A good name is better than fine perfume. Now catches, this is what be my favorite line in all of Ecclesiastes. And the day of death, is better than the day of birth. What in the world is you getting at? Let's keep going. It's better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. For death is the destiny

of everyone. The living should take this to heart. Frustration is better than laughter because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of the morning, but the heart of the fool is in the house of pleasure. It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person than to listen to the song of fools. Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laugh of fools. This too is meaningless. Extortion turns a wise person into a fool and a bribe corrupts the heart. Now catch this. The end of a matter is better than the beginning. Impatience is better than pride. Do not be provoked in your spirit for anger resides in the lap of fools. Do not say, why were the old days better than these? For it is not wise to ask such questions.

The preacher's wisdom here is bizarre. It's counterintuitive. I mean, who in the world says that death is better than birth? Or that morning is better than feasting? Or that frustration is better than laughter. Or that endings are better than beginnings. I believe the only person who can say these kinds of counterintuitive things is someone who's lived long enough to see the nature of unfulfilled dreams. Think for a second about a child. Every child has so much potential. And that's why we dream for children. children. Perhaps she'll become a successful business owner, or maybe she'll become a president, or maybe she'll become a good friend, or a good person. But that's a thing about potentiality. You don't know what anyone or anything will become until they become it, until it happens. This is why the day of death is better than the day of birth. Because it's only on the day of death that you can take a full measure of someone's life. It's only on the day of death that you see what they become, did they waste their time or did they use their time wisely? Did they live for themselves or did they live for other people? Did they make their corner of the world a better place? Or did they

make it worse? And this is why it's wise to go into a house of mourning rather than a house of feasting. When you attend a funeral, I mean think about this, you see everything laid bare. You see it in the attendees, in the stories, in the celebration of someone's life. Or perhaps you see the opposite of funeral. No one comes. The stories. are hard. Someone leaves this world unmissed and unremembered. And that's why nostalgia is such a trap. The preacher says that those who say the old days were better than these, he says that they're acting foolishly, because nostalgia is just dreaming in reverse. We excuse our present in action by mourning a whitewashed past. We try to set the clock in reverse rather than moving forward and

acting in the present. And of course, it's not just nostalgia that's a trap. The preacher says, that laughter can be a trap as well. The preacher says that frustration sets apart the doers from the dreamers, not laughter. And of course, that's not because laughing is bad. Laughing is great, but if all we do is laugh, then we do nothing at all. Laughter can be a way that we actually escape. It's a way that we can protect ourselves from our sense of responsibility. We're laughing because we're saying, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And so rather than acting to change it, we just grow cynical and laugh at the stupidity of it all. Those who choose to act, Those who choose to do, will they do something meaningful, they will inevitably face frustration.

And that's why frustration is better than laughter. If you choose to do something in this world, you will face resistance. You will face hardship because you did the hardest thing in the world. You didn't just dream. You showed up. In David Foster Wallace's novel, Infinite Jest, a character makes a profound observation. He says, you are what you walk between. I know that might not sound that profound, but let me explain it. He's talking about doorways, and his point is really simple. If you walk between the doorway of a gym every day, you'll become strong and healthy. If you walk between the doorways of a church every Sunday, you'll become spiritually strong and healthy. If you walk between the doorways of your friend's houses on both good and bad days, you'll have deep friendships. You become what you walk between. In his book Just Show Up, Drew Dick says that we build our loss.

not with our hearts or our minds, and not even with our hands. He says, you build your life with your feet. Where you go, where you show up, where you're present, where you act, where you do, well, that's where you'll actually make changes. For good or for ill. Those people who never show up, the people who hide behind the screens, the people have great ideas and great dreams, but no action, well, they end up doing very little at all. And can I be honest, sometimes I'm tempted to be one of those people. I am that person. So here's the question I want you to reflect on today. What will your funeral be like? What do you want it to be like? Who do you want to be there? What do you want people to say? The only way for that reality, that future dream to happen is to show up today in the lives of the people you want to

attend your funeral. It's to act in a way that makes people remember you fondly. It's to show up in the places where you're needed. Jesus is the greatest example of this. He shows. He shows. up. He didn't merely dream about rescuing his creation from sin. He acted. He put on flesh. He came to us. He walked amongst us. He became present to us. And then he died for us and he rose again. Do you realize that that same resurrection power is at work in you right now? It's there to spur you on, to show up in the lives of people around you, to never settle for empty dreams that never turn into anything. It's there to help you become a doer who's actively participating in his redemptive work. So don't settle for dreams.

Just show up in the name of Jesus.