Ecclesiastes, Malachi

God gave me Ecc 2:10-11 yesterday to encourage me, and I just thought I'd share it with you guys. At the time, I was kind of frustrated because I had bought a coffee in the evening -- at Cambridge large group, I beelined straight to Nathan and wailed, "Naathaaaan I just bought a coffee" (and he giggled at me). Anyhow, here it is:

Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 (NKJV)
Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labor;
And this was my reward from all my labor.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labor in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun.

I guess, in and of itself, that verse isn't very encouraging. But the following is a prayer that I wrote down, because we'll probably all have to (re-)pray it at some point.

"Abba, this is the prayer of someone who gives up far too easily: please teach me perseverance and show me why it is good to persevere, so that I may run and finish the race You have set out before me. Give me strength to sacrifice to You the things I do not need, so that I no longer grasp for the wind, but soar upon it on wings like eagles."

:o) And then there was this!

Malachi 3:10 (NKJV)
"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."