Ecclesiastes Chapter Five conclusion... The Blessing of a Forgetful Memory!

20 “For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart”.

This gift is a great treasure indeed; this soul will not dwell on the toils and troubles of life because God gives him such peace and joy! It does not say he or she will not suffer, it says they will not remember it. God gives as a gift to the righteous the gift of forgetfulness so that he does not dwell on his difficulties. It is a sign of being right with God when a trial has concluded and with peace and joy we move on. Solomon admired this trait because he was a tormented man so he admired the man who had peace and joy in spite of his suffering.

It is a burden and in some cases even a curse to have a strong memory of events. You talk to people at times and they can recount with great precision and accuracy a negative experience; they can tell you how it made them feel and manifest terrible emotional and spiritual scars. Perhaps it was a betrayal, perhaps a persecution or they were cheated or mistreated in some fashion but their memory of the event grows with time. I believe that all of us can conclude one of the greatest trials that exist in the word of God is that of our dear brother Job. He suffered loss of loved ones, loss of wealth and possessions, he lost the support of his wife and his friends and was quite alone in his suffering (in fact the hardest part was the loss of the very presence of God in the midst of his trial). And yet, how does the story end? God moves upon him and he ends his days with the great blessing of God on his life and his confession is of how right, true and good God is.

All of us have had bitter experiences? Perhaps through the whip of taskmasters or the betrayal of those who were not true. Perhaps we have been cheated of wealth or freedoms at the hand of others or even at the hand of God as He dealt with a secret area of our life. My recommendation is that we come before His presence, confess our condition and ask for the blessing of a weak memory of the event. As we make this appeal to the Lord lets also make a conscious choice to release it to Him; it is not His desire that we should carry such things.