Ecclesiastes for Kids | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Ecclesiastes for Kids | Previous Challenge Entry
By Pam Novak
01/15/08
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Now children, let me tell you a very important story before you go off to bed. It’s about a great king named Solomon, who lived a long time ago. God loved Solomon very much, so He made him very smart, very powerful, and very rich.

But you know what happens to people who have everything they want, right? They get bored. They don’t know what to do with their life. They start thinking that they must be missing something, but they aren’t sure what it is.

So Solomon thought to himself, “I’m very wise; maybe I can make the world better by solving some of the hardest problems in life.” So he went out from his palace and he saw that life didn’t seem to be fair. Some people were born blind or crippled. Some babies died when they were only a few days old. Sometimes houses caught fire from lightning and burned to the ground. Sometimes there was no rain and the farmer lost all his crops. As smart as Solomon was, he couldn’t figure out a way to solve these problems. He went back to his palace, and he was very sad.

So he thought some more, and decided that he could work hard and make something that would last forever. To get some ideas, he left his palace again and watched people working. He saw that some fathers worked very hard and left a good business to their children when they died, but the children were greedy and lazy and they ruined the business very quickly. Solomon thought that this might very well happen to him, too. Working hard might be a big waste of time. So he went back to his palace again, and he was even more sad.

Then Solomon thought to himself, “I have enough money to do anything I want! Maybe I just need to have more fun, and that will make me happy.” So Solomon threw great big parties and invited everyone he could think of. They all ate a lot more than they should have, played loud and messy games, and acted very silly (and even naughty, I’m sorry to say). After he had done this sort of thing for a while, Solomon realized that he really wasn’t any happier than he was before. In fact, he didn’t even like these people very much! They were only his friends because he fed them and paid for them to have fun. So Solomon stopped inviting people to the palace for parties, and he stayed home by himself. He was very, very sad.

Solomon thought for a long time. He wondered, “What am I supposed to do with my life, with all my wisdom and my riches and my power? Will any of it matter after I die?”

Then Solomon walked outside his palace and looked up at the sky. It was so beautiful and blue. He looked at the mountains with snow on their peaks. He looked at the colorful flowers growing wild in the fields nearby. Suddenly he didn’t feel so sad anymore. He thought to himself, “God made this world so beautiful. People have bad things happen to them, or maybe – like me – they have so many good things they just don’t remember to be thankful to God. It really doesn’t matter if a person is rich or poor, healthy or sickly, fast or slow. It doesn’t matter if a person has many friends or no friends at all. What matters is whether a person loves God and thanks Him for what He gives us. Once life is over, that’s all God will care about – did I love Him enough to do what He says is right?”

Solomon thanked God for giving Him the wisdom to see this, and he even wrote it all down in a book. I’ll let you read it for yourself when you’re a little older. But now it’s time for bed.

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