Surrounded by Schemers
26 I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.
27 “Look,” says the Teacher, “this is what I have discovered: “Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things—28 while I was still searching but not finding—I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.
29 This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.”
Ecclesiastes 7:26-29
Don’t get your wool in a tangle over this.
You are a schemer. You know. You plot ideas; make plans; even deceive.
At your worst you conspire to do evil.
I’m a schemer; just like you. In fact, we live in a world of schemers.
We commit adultery. We steal. We lie, just white ones. We judge our neighbor.
We plan revenge. Sometimes we take revenge.
Are you saying, “I never “scheme. No, not me.”
The prophet says, “We all, like sheep have gone astray.”
Our very characters are flawed by sin.
Jesus has THE plan:
Seeking and saving schemers.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.