Daily Devotionals

'Every Day Light' with Selwyn Hughes

Devotional: August 20th

For Reading and Meditation:
     Ecclesiastes 10:4-7

A further characteristic of a fool, says Solomon, is that he cannot control his anger. If a boss is hot-headed then don't react in the same way, he instructs us (v. 4). A fool quits his job in a fit of temper, but a wise man remains calm. How many people reading these lines, I wonder, look back to difficulties that could have been avoided if only they had learned not to take the huff. Solomon goes on to identify a problem that all of us have seen from time to time. It is the problem caused by putting a foolish and incompetent person in authority, who then, in turn, lords it over the ones who really ought to be in charge. "I've seen this evil," admits Solomon, and so, I am sure, have you too. The better qualified are put down, kept down, and mismanaged. Sadly I say it, but it is to be seen also in some parts of the Christian church. Dr. Kenneth Gangel points out in his book Thus Spake Qoheleth ("Qoheleth" is a pseudonym for Solomon): "Certainly we see things every day in our own country and around the world which make us wonder whether there is a great deal more of foolishness than wisdom in every human government. Maybe God just wants us to see how foolish we are and how useless it is to trust in the vanities of mankind 'under the sun'." However much we might dislike it, the reality is this - fools cannot always be kept at a level where it is impossible for them to do much harm.

O God, perhaps it is true, as is often said, that we get the government we deserve. Can it be that we are more party-political than prayerful over matters, and because of this we sometimes elect the wrong people. Forgive us. In Jesus' Name. Amen.