Ep. 64 - Cast Your Bread

Solomon writes a lot about how unfair things are in the book of Ecclesiastes.  Things don't always work out and there are always a million things we don't know and/or cannot control.  However, he ultimately prescribes daily optimism and a willingness to cast your bread on the waters, even if you don't know what will happen after.  If our attitude is right and our heart is committed, we can cast bread widely every single day, and in that way, make every single day exciting, and worth the living!

- How to accept that there are things in life you just cannot know

- What to do when you wake up and have no idea what the future holds

- Why it is important to cast your bread, and widely, and work the field 

- How is every day infused with meaning when we Rejoice, Remove and Remember

- What are you going to do today that shows you have ultimate trust in God

Transcript

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Hello, welcome to the Excel Still More podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson, and we are here to talk about tips and strategies that you can employ to deepen your faith, improve your relationships, and just get the most out of your life. Thank you for joining. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the Excel Stillmore Podcast. Today we're talking about casting your bread, your seed upon the waters. It's a quote that comes directly from Ecclesiastes chapter 11, and I think you will enjoy the study of that chapter today. So if you happen to have a Bible nearby and you were open to Ecclesiastes 11 and 12, you'd be in a great spot. This is a follow-up to something we did two and a half weeks ago, I think, an episode titled Eternity and Today. In that episode, we focused heavily on how important it is for you to think about eternity all the time, but stay focused on what you're going to do today to strive for it. There is very little benefit in dwelling on what happened before today, and there are diminished returns in putting all of your energy into what hasn't even come yet. But I got to thinking about it over the last week, that there may be people who intellectually understand that argument, but emotionally they're just not able to get behind it. There may be people listening to this program who do not get excited about mornings, about the potential of a brand new day. We did an episode several weeks ago about how we're new every morning, and there's all this potential, and you can lay out spiritual interests and frogs to eat and people to influence, and really just do everything in your power to make every day awesome. That's how it ought to feel when you wake up in the morning, and some may just not be feeling that. They use phrases like the daily grind. They're always talking about just trying to get to the weekend. I think we can do better than that, and in fact, if you're truly interested in excelling still more in your faith, friendships, and in other areas, you're going to need to be excited about the potential of the day you're currently living and do something incredible with it. I believe that Ecclesiastes 11 will be a massive help for that. Firstly, let me give you a bit of history into that book. It's kind of ironic that the end of the book of Ecclesiastes is about optimism in every day, because overall it's a pretty negative book. If you're familiar with Solomon's work, you know that the book of Proverbs is filled with basic fairness principles. Proverbs says, if you're wise, life will go well. If you're foolish, life will not go well. Those who make good choices live with great blessings. Those who make bad choices fall to great demise. It's a book filled with practical, usually reliable wisdom. But then when he gets into the book of Ecclesiastes, he flips all that upside down. He says, Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, life on earth is unpredictable, oftentimes unfair, and everything can just flip to the opposite polarity in a moment's notice. Sometimes the wise falter, sometimes the fools succeed. Sometimes all your best plans equal nothing, and other people sometimes just luck into the best of situations. So by the time you get to the end of Ecclesiastes, you're thinking, what's the point? I mean, there's really no predicting what's coming. So why should I be excited about what I do today? Well, personally, I really enjoy the answers in this chapter, so let's jump right in. First of all, he opens with more very sobering language. He opens by saying, There are at least four things that you do not know that you probably will never know. If you're depending on knowing these things before you get optimistic about your day, you will live a very pessimistic life. What are those four things? In verse two, he says, You do not know what misfortune may occur on the earth. In other words, it may totally fail. Whatever you try to do may equal nothing on this earth. That's a possibility, you just don't know. In verse five, he says, You do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman. In other words, you don't really know how things work. You don't know how all this was put together. It reminds me of those sixty questions or something that God asked Job about how all of this around us operates, and he couldn't answer any of those questions. If you're waiting until you know how everything fits together so that you can calculate what's coming, you're never going to know that. Number three, in verse five, he said, You do not know the activity of God who makes all things. Sure, you can learn his will for your life, and you can learn about what pleases him, but what he is doing with your life, what he has planned for you, what is coming from his hand, you're never really going to know that until you get there and experience it real time. In verse six he said, You do not know whether morning or evening sewing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good. Now we'll talk about all that sewing here in a minute, but he said, You don't know if you will succeed. This may be the best thing you've ever done. Steps you take today may end up changing your life forever, but you're not really going to know until you've gotten out there and done it. So there's four things. You do not know if your efforts will fail, you do not know how things work, you do not know what God is doing, and you do not know if it will succeed. Now for most of us, that's just about enough information. I am not going to try anything new. I am not going to start some routine or schedule. I'm not going to make some extraordinary effort. I am paralyzed by a lack of confidence. That is not the message of Ecclesiastes. The message is more freeing than that, more liberating. If you can go ahead and acknowledge all the things that you don't know and cannot control, it frees you up to just go for it. Be optimistic, give it your best shot, and just see what happens, believing in and trusting in God. You see, in those same verses with all of that information, he instructs us to do three things. Check this out. Here's the first one, and it's right there in verse one, and it represents the title of our episode today. Cast your bread on the surface of the waters. Now here's the imagery. You're somebody who needs to sow wheat in a field to provide for your family. You've got all this seed in your pocket, and you walk up to the field and it's flooded. It's got three inches of water on it. There are a hundred reasons why you could go home. You could say, the seed may not sink into the soil. It may rain another solid week. There are a hundred reasons why this might not work out. I don't know what's going to happen. Solomon said, Duh, we've established that. If it's time to sow the seed, if it's the right moment and you know what's right, cast your bread on the surface of the waters. Do it. Start it. Go for it. Be excited about its potential, not weary about the things you don't know. In fact, in verse two, he kind of doubles down on that. He said, In fact, divide your portion to seven or even to eight, for you do not know. In other words, don't just sow your seed in one little corner just to see if it works out, because by the time it works out, you won't have time to grow the rest of your seed, and you'll starve anyway. Go for it, spread it out, say, I'm taking my chance today, I'm excited about what might happen, and I'm not afraid to spread it around in every field I've got. I'm going to put it in all my fields, because I believe this could be great. Thirdly, then, in verse six, he said, Sow your seed in the morning, and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good. So he's saying, Don't just cast your bread out on the waters and spread it around, but get out there and work it. Work it in the morning, put on your rubber boots, walk out in that three inches of water, and start working that soil to help that seed settle in. Really give it a go, stick with it. Now think about this from a farming perspective. You've got two farmers in the same situation. One of them casts the bread, spreads that seed around, and works it, even though maybe the odds are against him. The other one goes home and misses the sowing season and does nothing. The second man is guaranteed to starve. The first man has hope. Because he made the most of the day when it was time to do what was right. And so that's the takeaway for me. Every day has a lot of question marks, but I'm still excited about it, because the only way to waste today for sure is to do nothing. Nothing special, nothing new, nothing life-changing. Hide the seed and walk home. So three things to think about here that connect to cast your bread, divide your portion, and do not be idle. Number one, start something good. Why not start something new? We mentioned this in the last episode about restoring your world order as you get into the fall. And I gave you five little tips on how to do that. And the fifth one was go out and start something new. Be creative. Why not? Well, because don't start that. If you know it pleases God, get excited today and do it. And secondly, spread it around. Tell people about it. See if you can get others excited about it. Don't just do it in a little corner so there's no real embarrassment if it fails. Be courageous about it. If it's evangelism, tell your friends, get them involved, reach out to multiple people. And then thirdly, stay committed. You gotta give it some time. Don't try something for a day or two, get down about it and quit. Once that man threw that seed out on the waters in his fields, it was definitely still going to fail if he didn't get out there morning to evening and work that field even in the water. We've got to be like that. And by the way, that makes every day exciting. Part of our routine every day is not starting something new every day. You start something new and then for the next seven days or thirty days, you just work that thing. You give it a real shot, you spread it around, you share some excitement about it, and you see where it goes. To be honest with you, I have just described to you how this podcast has come to be. And how it is that by the Lord's will, we are 64 episodes in. Early this year, I just wanted to start something that I thought would be good. Something that would be good for me, something that might be good for others. I didn't know what would happen. Had never even done anything like this before. But I cast my bread on the waters and I started something. And you know what? I decided not to hide it. Not to do it in a corner with just a few people who listen and really try to keep the embarrassment factor down. Could it have failed? Might it still fail? Sure, I guess. But I still was pretty excited about sharing something exciting to me, and every day had that energy to it. And now I'm still working it. I give it a little bit of time each day, record a couple of episodes every week, and I'll do that until we see what happens. Until it runs out of influence or continually if it helps people. But I get excited about that pretty much every morning. What little bit of research goes into it? The question is, what's that going to be for you? And more importantly to our topic today, how many people, as Solomon describes in Ecclesiastes chapter eleven, has the seed in their pocket? They already know what the good thing is, how to spread it, and what the work looks like, but they're too busy staring at the water, staring at the clouds, unsure of what is coming, and they do nothing. Yeah, that day does not sound very exciting to me. It would be pretty hard to be optimistic about tomorrow if that's the way I knew it was going to go. Remember, I don't have to know what's going to happen. In fact, I'll never know much of what is going to happen. But I know what today feels like when I'm trying something important, when I'm doing something godly, when I'm trusting in him. Okay, so I hope you're enjoying this walkthrough Ecclesiastes 11, because there's a little bit more that I want to add to it. Attitude is everything. If you listen to this episode up to this point and you say, He's right, I need to quit worrying about everything and just do what's right. But you really don't have the right attitude going into it, you'll find that it won't last very long. So later in Ecclesiastes 11, there are three words that start with the letter R. Maybe it'll help you remember, it helps me remember, that represent the right kind of attitude you take into every day so that you'll have the courage to reach into the sack, grab the seed, and spread it around, whatever it might be. Those words are rejoice, remove, and remember. You think you can recall that to throw an extra R in there for free? He's addressing primarily younger people, but I don't think he means kids. I think he means people who are healthy, people who are strong, people who have their mental faculties, people who can still do some things. So more than likely that means you. So keep that in mind. In verse nine he says, Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, let your heart be pleasant during the days of your young manhood, and follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Then he qualifies it a little bit and says, Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So in other words, be responsible, be godly, make good and wholesome choices, but under that heading, do so rejoicing. Rejoice that you have the ability to try things, rejoice that you have the energy to do it. If you have an impulse, follow it. If you see something you desire and it's good and it's godly, especially if it'll help people, get excited about it, put a big smile on your face and do it. I just think we need a lot more daily optimism, rejoicing, and exuberance. There's a contrast in chapters 11 and 12 from the young person who ought to be rejoicing and the much, much older person who doesn't have those faculties any longer. Oh, how they would love to relive a day like the one you're living right now. The second word is remove. So remove grief and anger from your heart and put away evil from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting. So those who have this ability to make the most of a day, don't live with grief and anger. I know you're going to feel those things, but don't let them dominate your life. Don't let them stop you from believing in yourself or from believing in other people. Older folks who've lost all of those days of potential, if they had wasted years in grief and anger and sin, they would tell you, I'd give anything to go back and live one day of my youth free in Jesus, without any anger or grief or evil, celebrating who I am. Most of us, you and me, we've got the potential to remove grief and anger, put it aside, pray it away, leave it at the feet of God, and enjoy the time while you have it. So number one, rejoice. Number two, remove that grief and anger. And number three, remember also your creator in the days of your youth. You and I have the ability to think about God every day, to read the Word of God every day, to have viable discussions about the glory of our great Creator every day. I don't want a day to pass without that. One day it may be hard to see and feel his glory, but not today. Today I have that ability, and I will rejoice in it. So there you have it. There'll always be tons of things you don't know about even this day. But start something good anyway. Spread it around with optimism and stay committed to it. Do so rejoicing in who you are, removing things that hold you back, and constantly mindful of the presence of your Creator. May He bless you greatly as you cast your bread. Thank you so much for listening today. We encourage you to check out the website excelstillmore.life, where you can subscribe to emails, order the three-month journal, or check out past episodes. As always, please consider sharing this with people in your life who you think we can help. And whatever you do today in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, excel still more.