Ecclesiastes 3:4 Commentary and Bible Study

You cannot organise emotional matters to demand. You have to respond. Times of happiness and success come and we do not control the events which produce them. Emotions are expressed which are so diametrically opposed to each other that it would be impossible for us to hold them both at the same time. No one can weep with sorrow and laugh with happiness at the same time; these emotions demand exclusive control of our hearts, yet in both cases we respond to what is before us, and we have very little choice about how we will react. A change outside us has created a change within us whether we like it or not; we cannot help but be involved in life and respond at the deepest level of our being to things that matter intensely to us. We cannot detach ourselves and live cut off from the world in our own little bubble. Yet what is achieved by these emotional fluctuations except that we are deeply moved within? The world continues on its way and pays little regard to us, while our emotions tag along behind. What meaning is there to our strong sorrow on one occasion, in the light of our equally strong rejoicing on another? Has our sorrow discovered the true meaning of life? Surely not, for it is soon replaced by another equally strong emotion, and yet for a time this was the sum total of our response to the world.