Last night, while hosting a cook down with my kids, I heard over the radio John Courson saying “They searched for vanity, and lived in vain”.
I paused and honestly wished I had paid more attention to what was being broadcast on the radio.
You see, when I have a cook down, my kitchen becomes a lab and a theatre room at the same time. We were making mahamri & mbaazi for today’s breakfast and 3 jams i.e. apple, pineapple & orange marmalade. My kids fell asleep halfway through the cook down and the last jam got burnt 🙄.
Back to John Courson. He continued to say ” Vanity is biblically defined as waste”.
At this point, I really wished I got the context but it was in the earlier parts of the Old Testament.
It got me thinking though. If vanity is waste, what wasted efforts am I participating in right now that really yield no viable fruit. I guess that’s why my marmalade got burnt coz I was lost in thought of identification, elimination, modification & replacement.
Ecclesiastes 2:1
Ecclesiastes 2:11
Ecclesiastes 4:4
Ecclesiastes 5:10
Ecclesiastes 6:2
Jeremiah 2:5
Psalms 39:6
Psalms 119:37
Jonah 2:8
Are you toiling for vain & consequently living in vain?
Or are you expanding the kingdom of God through the works of your hands?
I am not asking you to be a fanatic. God is asking you to be deliberate in how you live & spend your energies.
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.“ Matthew 10:16.