And so the author ties a bow on this for us, drawing everything to a conclusion with these two verses:

13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Essentially, he is telling us that fearing God - honoring Him in our hearts, our minds, and with our behavior - is ultimately our job.  Life will bring blessing and will sweep it away, and we ultimately can’t really control that...we can leverage wisdom for our good, and we should, but we can’t really exhibit much control over life.  Further, life isn’t about accomplishment or achievement, it is about pursuit...pursuit of the one thing for which we were made, God’s purpose of each and every one of us, which is unique to us all.

In a way, we could say that the author could have gotten to that point a lot quicker.  But, in another way, we realize that we need that point to be drug out across 11 chapters because we are all going to still do the same thing...we are going to compare ourselves to others and we are going to pursue worldly things for which we have no good reason to pursue.  We are stubborn.

The nice thing is though...this is in writing, and we can refer back.  That’s the miracle of the Bible...the words live on, and we can and we definitely should keep coming back for the reminders of whose we are, and of the purpose of our lives.  Great last chapter today.  Tomorrow, I will dive back into Proverbs and then we’ll pick up on a new book of the Bible in the new few days.