In these days, under the sun, it is unavoidably true that we live in a world where we will soon be dead.

Extortion is a way of escaping your responsibility; impatience is a way of escaping reality and wishing things were different from the way they are; anger is a way of escaping your inability to cope with things not being the way you want them. Nostalgia is a form of escapism by taking a vacation in the past instead of grappling with the present or

Wisdom Literature uses proverbs and pithy sayings, riddles and provocation, question and answer, prose and poetry, to force us to look at things from a different angle. Its aim is to “wound from behind.”3 Like a punch in the back, it makes painful points we didn’t see coming and which leave us blinking in surprise.

We usually think life tomorrow is going to be better than life today, because tomorrow we’ll have achieved something new: tomorrow we’ll spend more time with the Bible, we’ll finally tidy the house; tomorrow we’ll complete the dream move, the promotion, the degree, a marriage, the deadline.

Just as God made every person, so at the end, in old age and death, every person is unmade.

When we are not grateful for the little things, it is only a very short step to no longer being grateful for anything.

From these two things flow all the happiness in life we will ever need, for it is there we see ourselves as we truly are: dependent creatures made for relationship with our Creator.

This should affect my life in another way too. Knowing that God is outside of time and sees it all and will, in the end, bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, stops me needing to be in control of everything that happens to me.

But learning the difference between the pretend world and the real world can often be a confusing process. In the real shop you can’t just buy whatever you want. In the real hospital people are actually in pain, and the doctors can’t always make everyone better. In the real world making amends is sometimes the hardest thing possible. Real tears