As we venture on in our Ecclesiastes Study, Solomon again laments his frustration about the different providences of God, He can’t understand why things happen the way that they do.  It is beyond his intellectual pay grade, it is transcends human understanding.  

Ecc 8:14  There is futility which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say that this too is futility.

Here the preacher is wondering, why do bad things happen to good people and vice versa, why do good things happen to bad people.  

That is a perplexing question for sure, one that has baffled the masses since time began.  We remember that this was written 600 years before Christ entered time, so well over 2500 years ago, and today we continue to ask this question.  Why do Tsunami’s happen, why do kids die of sudden infant death syndrome?  Why did my brother get killed in a car accident?  Why am I sick at such a young age?  

This is certainly not a new question, but part of our humble Christian walk is to surrender these things to God.  Again, we can’t deign to try and figure out why God does what He does, but we can learn His attributes by studying His Word, the Bible, which is God’s revelation of Himself to us.  

Looking at original sin.  Why did God allow Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit?  After that, sin enters the world and historically man has been screwing over his fellow man since.  But looking at it through the lens of the Bible, this is all part of God’s redemptive plan.  Sin enters the world, around 5000 BC.  Then about 5,030 years later Christ dies to atone for that sin, freeing man from God’s wrath.  So that act alone crosses 5 different millenniums, so just to give us a general idea of the infinite expanses of eternity that God operates above, trying to figure out the day-to-day operations of how God runs the world is as Solomon says vanity, or pointless.  It would be like trying to teach calculus to a mosquito.  

So rather than twisting our brains into pretzels trying to figure out the ways of the world, it is best for us to trust and obey.  Once we surrender these things to Christ, life becomes much less stressful.  As He tells us in Mat 11:29  “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.