I Don’t, But God Does

I Don’t, But God Does Evangelists find encouragement in the most unlikely places – like the Book of Ecclesiastes. While others puzzle over its central theme, viewpoint, attitude, focus and even its authorship, the evangelist is encouraged when he reads: “He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know what is the way of the wind ... so you do not know the works of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper” (Eccl. 11:4-6 NKJV). The evangelist sees these verses as confirmation of Paul’s directive: “In season and out of season ... do the work of an evangelist” (2 Tim. 4:2,5). He knows well the danger of waiting for the perfect conditions for sowing the seed of the gospel (Mt. 13:3-9). Years ago, I felt the urge to speak to a neighbor about salvation, but hesitated because I judged the conditions to be inappropriate. Then he died. Every time I read Ecclesiastes, the thrice-repeated phrase, “You do not know,” reminds me to pay more attention to the Spirit’s prompting than to the conditions. On January 31, 2000 an Alaska Air flight crashed into the ocean near Los Angeles. As the plane was going down, a pastor’s wife felt led to tell the Good News to the 88 passengers before they died. Can you imagine the chaos on that plane? While others were concerned about survival, safety, things left behind, left undone, left unsaid, this woman responded to the Spirit and, for the last few minutes of her life, told these passengers about the Savior who could make their eternal future heaven instead of hell. How many responded? Only God knows. Ecclesiastes has given us several well-known one-liners such as “All is vanity” and “For everything there is a season.” But my favorite has become “You do not know.” Why? Because I don’t! But God does. By Larry Ondrejack