What To Do When You Can't Do Anything About It

Live long enough and you'll eventually find yourself stuck. You cant change the conditions of your life. You can't change the people around you. You can't find your way out of a season that seems to last forever. What do you do?

Solomon explores this in Ecclesiastes 8. He starts by giving practical advice when you find yourself working for a difficult person. Perhaps a king. 

Ecclesiastes 8:2 (ESV) I say: Keep the king’s command, because of God’s oath to him.

God's oath here refers to the sovereign choice of God to elect certain people to high office and remove others. Daniel backs this up well:

Daniel 2:21 (ESV) He (God) changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;

It was God who gave the people their kings - Saul, David, and now Solomon. It was God who used Pharaoh to show His glory in delivering His people from Egypt's grip and God who used Nebuchadnezzar to punish them when they sinned. All kings are in place by God. Romans 13 says "there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." (Romans 13:1). 

We can dislike the person, and even notice their crystal clear flaws but they are there to accomplish God's purpose in the world - believe it or not. So what do we do when we have to live under them? Listen and obey (as far as we are able within our Christian lives). Why? Solomon explains:

Ecclesiastes 8:4–5 (ESV) For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, “What are you doing?” 5 Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way.

The key is that last line in verse 5. The wise will know the time and place to act in ways that may not align with the king, (See Daniel 1/3/6), but for the most part, do your job. There's no other option. 

Then Solomon moves on to cover those times when we see evil raging and nothing being done about it. 

Ecclesiastes 8:11 (ESV) Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

Again, this is a powerless situation. The authorities won't act and your conscience is burning while lawlessness seems to be validated by the powerful. What do we do?

Ecclesiastes 8:12 (ESV) Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him.

In the long run, God will bless those who fear Him. Trust God and allow Him to stretch your patience through times of injustice. Many generations before us have experienced this from Jim Crow to the concentration camps in Germany. We know the end of those stories, the challenge is not seeing the end in ours. But I guarantee, in those former times, the people felt like the world was ending. It didn't. Carry on with God.

Then Solomon addresses the blatant inequities of life. 

Ecclesiastes 8:14 (ESV) There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

Notice the word, "vanity" here twice in one verse. This theme word of Ecclesiastes refers to the emptiness of life. Nothing makes life more seemingly pointless than injustice for the wicked and punishment for the righteous. Solomon commends joy in the next verse, but you get the feeling that's not the final resolve he intends. He then states the following from which we can gain great insight by affirming we don't know everything God is up to. 

Ecclesiastes 8:16–17 (ESV) When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one’s eyes see sleep, 17 then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.

Ultimately, there's a plan in place from God. He knows what He's doing and we don't. That's part of our created-being(ness). We are not in charge. So what do we do in the stuck seasons of life? We do what's required. We seek wisdom to know the rare moments we should do the unusual and we let God be God. He's developing patience in us while accomplishing His purpose in the world. It may look wrong at times, but scripture proves from Pharaoh to Pilate that everything will be used to bring salvation to His people. We are bound for everlasting joy.