Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Kirsten Holmberg, and I titled our reading, Joy and Wisdom.

Sweetly fragrant cherry tree blossoms flood Japan with exquisite pale and vibrant pinks every spring,

delighting the senses of residents and tourists alike. The short-lived nature of the blossoms

cultivates a keen awareness in the Japanese to savor the beauty and scent while they linger. The very brevity of the

experience heightens the poignancy of it. They call this deliberate enjoyment of something that

will change quickly, monono o'ari. As humans, it's understandable that we'd want to seek and prolong feelings of joy. Yet the reality

that life is riddled with hardship means that we must cultivate the ability to view both pain

and pleasure through a lens of faith in a loving God. We needn't be overly pessimistic, nor should we fashion ourselves an

unrealistic sunny outlook on life. The book of Ecclesiastes offers a helpful model for us.

Though this book is sometimes thought to be a catalog of negative statements, the same King Solomon

who wrote that everything is meaningless also encouraged

his readers to find joy in the simple things in life, saying there is nothing better for a person

under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Joy comes when we ask God to help us know wisdom and learn to observe all that God has done in both beautiful seasons and in difficult ones,

knowing that neither is permanent on this side of heaven.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Ecclesiastes chapter 8 verses 14 through 17.

There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth.

The righteous who get what the wicked deserve.

And the wicked who get what the righteous deserve.

This, too, I say, is meaningless.

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.

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