Cast Your Bread upon the Waters

Human eyes cannot see the life growing inside a mother’s womb, yet when we meet the baby through an ultrasound, we marvel at the wonderful power and wisdom of God. In the image the baby’s face, hands, and feet appear, and the spine stands out clearly; and within one person’s body another life, with an entirely different blood type, is alive and well. That can only be called the power of God. Only God can cause a life to be conceived like this, and only God can make the bones grow in the womb.

You came into the world under this same blessing. Every soul in this world is precious, and the very fact that they were born is a blessing and a miracle. These souls were born under God’s absolute care and love. Making known to them the God who accomplishes all things, and helping them understand him, is, I believe, the responsibility of those of us who came to faith first.

Ecclesiastes says, “Cast your bread on the waters; for you shall find it after many days.” It tells us to cast on the waters the spiritual food we now hold. If you cast the food of life you carry into a world held in the prostitute’s embrace, then after many days you will find at least a few people. What you cast is the food of life that saves people, and just as Jesus likened himself to bread, it is Christ. You must cast on the waters the bread of life that Jesus has given you. When you bring Christ, the bread of life, to the world, those among the hearers who have ears to hear will surely be saved. Just as you received the bread of life and were saved, may someone else come onto the road of salvation through you.

As I expounded Ecclesiastes, I came to see how deeply Solomon repented of the wrong life he had lived, and how earnestly he longed for his people not to walk the road he had walked. You will have realized by now that the bread cast on the waters is Jesus Christ. Do not be stingy in sharing that bread; scatter it in ever more places, and so take the lead in extending the Kingdom of God. However much power and wealth someone holds in this world, in the end every life returns to a handful of dust. If we are God’s people, then along the road of life, which runs as swift as an arrow, we must leave behind the fruit of the Spirit, the marks of our labor for faith and for the saving of souls. May you too put away all greed and lust and, following Solomon in his repentance, take the lowly place with a humble heart.

When you close the last page of this book, I hope that, like Solomon, you will recover your first love. If the deep love of God, who waits to the very end, is restored in you, God will begin a greater work through you. Even as all of us confess that life is vanity of vanities, my deepest wish is that you will always be a precious instrument that God uses. I will be praying that you always enjoy peace and rest in the Lord.

January 2010
Cho Chun-sook, Pastor of Watercourse Church