There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

I love it when a devotional reading strikes a chord. Since I started listening to the daily podcasts of the (Anglican) Morning Prayer service from the New Zealand Prayer Book, I have noticed that readings often speak to an issue that I am facing or a feeling that I am struggling with. The words may comfort, inspire, or nudge me in a certain direction. It can feel like God is answering a prayer even if I didn’t realize that I had prayed about it. But then there are days when it feels like God is playing a cosmic joke on me–or at least revealing His sense of humor.

Last Monday I was getting ready to go in to work even though it was a holiday because I just have so much work to do.

The Old Testament reading was from the first chapter of Ecclesiastes:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?

Ah, those are words to inspire someone who is giving up a holiday to try to get ahead at work!

Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and turns to the north;
round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

Now, that doesn’t sound so bad. Isn’t there comfort in the sun’s constancy? And wouldn’t we be devastated by floods if the sea could get full?

All things are wearisome, more than one can say.

So much for trying to find some reason for optimism in this passage!

The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

What?! Is that where that phrase came from?

Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

Oh, Dear Lord! What are you trying to do to me?

I am a patent attorney! My job is to convince patent offices around the world that my clients have indeed discovered something “new under the sun,” that they have invented “something new” that was not “here already, long ago!”

All I can say, God, is that at least on Monday, I got the last laugh. Sitting in my inbox were notices for several clients indicating that their patents would be granted.

But still, I have to wonder, what were you trying to say to me? 🙂

Have you ever felt that a prayer was being answered through something you read or heard in a different context?

Do you think God has a sense of humor?