Peters Progress

The wonderful thing about living so close to the coast is being able to go down to the beach and stare at the horizon.

When I lived in England for several years or returned to visit say, London, I always missed having sight of an unbroken horizon in the far distance. My view of a washed out sky was through a narrow window between buildings or of buildings in the distance.

I connect with horizons in poetry too! Stephen Crane wrote a poem on the theme:

“I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

Round and round they sped

I was disturbed at this I accosted the man.

‘It is futile,’ I said, ‘You can never – ‘ ‘You lie,’ he cried.

And ran on.

The book of Ecclesiastes is about chasing horizons. “Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (1v2). The Teacher goes on to explore and then conclude that wisdom by itself is meaningless. So is pleasure and wealth, which can wring hollow. Ditto toil because we work hard to gain the world and then die: “All go to the same place; all come from the dust, and to dust all return” (3v20

The Teacher concludes his inquiry into what makes life ultimately meaningful. “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (12v13). Fear God – we are meant to revere God and hallow God’s name. How do we do this? By taking God’s instructions to us seriously in making God’s priorities for us and the world, our priorities.

Another Teacher, Jesus, taught his followers to pray and live out what we now call the Lord’s Prayer – “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It’s the same theme. The same duty for people. It’s all about God’s glory, his Name, and God’s will being done to bring about his Kingdom. Anything less than this comes to echo the mantra of the Teacher of Ecclesiastes, “meaningless, meaningless – everything is meaningless.”

May I hallow God’s name in all I do and say today. May I make God’s Kingdom known.

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