So I commend the enjoyment of life…
… because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun. Eccles. 8:15
Heavenly Father, if you never commanded Sabbath rest, we wouldn’t take it. And if you never commended the enjoyment of life, we’d probably go to the extremes of either taking simple joys for granted, feel guilty about having fun, or worship pleasure altogether.
So today we’re slowing down enough just to say thank you. Thank you for designing us for rest, pleasure and delight. Thank you for giving us sensate responders, nerve endings, and facial smile muscles. Father, thank you for taste buds, acoustic responders, and optic wiring. Thank you for intending joy to be our traveling companion all the way Home.
Thank you for never-the-same sunsets, the aroma of cinnamon rolls baking, and the welcome our pets give us. Thank you for the sound of waves crashing the shoreline, perfectly grilled Cobia, and the voice of three-year-old’s. Thank you for rainbows after the storm, memory-connecting songs, and that first big bite of flourless chocolate cake.
Thank you for unrushed conversations, snort-producing laughter, and really good movies. Thank you for Wimbledon tennis matches, museums of fine art, and fish that are biting. Thank you for good naps, low-maintenance friendships, and the state of Montana. Thank you for photography, bike riding, and perfect kale salads.
Above all, Father, thank you that the gospel is absolutely true, incomparably beautiful, and inexhaustibly good. Our ongoing work under the sun has meaning because of the finished work of your beloved Son. Because of your outrageous love for us in Jesus, and your sovereignty over all things, we will rejoice and be glad today. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ holy and loving name.
