You can have it all! A Recipe for the Good Life

Ecc 5:18-20 Even so I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them and to accept their lot in life. And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the power/good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life - this is indeed a gift from God. God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past.
In the preceding verses, Solomon expresses his wise counsel on the futility of wealth. And this is his conclusion, the recipe of a good life. It’s one of the few things his critical wisdom approves of. It is the one thing that he noticed that was good about life. Here it is......
Eat and drink/The great lifestyle
Enjoy your work
Accept your lot /portion in life
Receive wealth from God
The ability/power/health to enjoy it
Enjoying a good lifestyle,
Eating and drinking is what we often think as blessings but Solomon had observed that it goes further than just that. If you work so hard to afford a great lifestyle but you hate your job.... you are miserable. Work needs to be more than just a means of meeting your needs. You need to find something you enjoy doing that brings great joy to your heart and enables you to afford the finer things in life. This is what entrepreneurs call fulfilment. If you hate Monday mornings and can't wait for your day off.... Start thinking of a career change. Look for something that brings fulfilment. And fulfilment can only be achieved from realising and working on your own purpose. Find your purpose and figure out a way of meeting your lifestyle needs from it.
Contentment
Contentment is ship missed by many. Accept your lot. Accept your portion as defined by God. There can only be one Bill Gates, one Barrack Obama, one Founder of..... One lead pastor of.... One Innovator of........You get me. Stop coveting what’s not yours. If you know your purpose you will know where the line between contentment and selfish ambition is. Ambition is good, but it should be directed towards achieving your life’s purpose. It should not be directed at fruitless competition, geared at becoming better than someone else but it should be geared at becoming a better version of you. Ambition should not be about keeping up with your peers or overtaking them, but at improving on the realisation/actualisation of your purpose. People are too low a standard to aim for. You want standards? Look to Him, the definer of excellence. Finding your purpose and living it is not enough, you need to accept that it is good enough. Specialize, be the best in it, don't try to be everything and everyone. Focus and accept your life as revealed.
Receive wealth from God.
I wonder why did Solomon phrased it that way. He could have said, create wealth, amass wealth, find wealth, and grow wealth and all those other phrases people use. All those other phrases have an active element suggesting that you have to do something but the advice of Solomon is receive wealth from God. It’s passive. We all want wealth but to really enjoy it, we need to receive. Ask and you shall receive. You can acquire wealth by toiling for it and though you might get it you will be too busy to enjoy it. Stop chasing wealth, find your purpose, work on it and wealth will come to you.  This is called passive wealth. And here I thought that that tip about passive income was an idea from the rich guys... Guess what! It’s Biblical!
Finally the ability to enjoy all these things.
Some versions have it as the power or the health to enjoy the wealth. What a tragedy to have an awesome lifestyle, a great job, wealth but you can’t enjoy it and someone else gets to enjoy what is yours. Illness, oppression, theft, political upheavals, family squabbles, suits in courts, etc steal our ability to enjoy life. The devil is describe as a thief who only comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came that we may have life and have it in abundance. If there’s something keeping you from enjoying life, it’s not from God. If you can’t enjoy the fruit of your labour, it’s not from God. Look to God for only He can give you the ability to fully enjoy your wealth.
The Gift of God
Solomon emphasised that to have all these is truly a gift of God. God causes you to have so much joy and fulfilment that you are too busy enjoying life to brood over your life. You are too busy enjoying God's gift that you never worry about your life and how it will turn out.... That’s abundance. In short Solomon says.... Unlike common worldly belief.. You can have it all...  Yes you can have it all. But only in Christ Jesus. You can earn a great lifestyle, you can create wealth but to have it all- Only God can give you that. To enjoy life at its fullest, we need God. Only through Jesus can we find that abundance we all long for.
But how?
Jesus already gave us the how: Seek ye First the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness and all these will be added unto you.