Shin was born in a North Korean prison camp, where he lived until he was 23. He never thought to escape, for he didn’t imagine that life was any different on the other side of the electrified fence. Then he met a new prisoner. Park told Shin about the outside world, especially that people enjoyed pork and boiled chicken rather than the rats that Shin ate to survive. One evening Shin and Park dropped the firewood they were collecting and ran toward the fence. Park arrived first, and was immediately electrocuted when he squeezed between the first and second wires. Shin crawled across his lifeless friend and scrambled to freedom. Today Shin lives in South Korea, where he calls attention to the barbaric conditions in the camps.
Shin’s life couldn’t be more different from King Solomon’s, and yet they are very much the same. Solomon enjoyed every pleasure a man could want: laughter, feasts, gardens, parks, palaces, and concubines (Ecclesiastes 2:1-8). He made the rules that prisoners like Shin were forced to obey. Yet Solomon too was trapped in a prison of despair. He admitted that he “came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:17).
Our lives couldn’t be more different than either Shin’s or Solomon’s, yet they are very much the same. For true joy must come from the outside. Jesus must break into our world to tell us what we’re missing—having laid down His life so we can have life. Shin’s remarkable escape is almost too fantastic to believe, except that it has happened before. It happened to me, and Jesus provided the way out.
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Acts 27:1-26
More:
Read Ecclesiastes 12:1-14 to learn how the meaning of life comes from outside our world.
Next:
Where would you be if God hadn’t broken into your world? Express your gratitude today by sharing God’s life-giving Word with someone who desperately needs it.
gillian on November 16, 2013 at 8:18 am
Thank you very much for your thoughts on Ecclesiastes. Often in sermons, I have heard on this book, one does end up thinking that everything in life is meaningless!?!
Perhaps, we should view the writer of Ecclesiastes as really saying, ” Everything is meaningless without God but everything is MEANINGFUL WITH GOD.”
mike wittmer on November 16, 2013 at 9:41 am
Yes, Gillian. Even the ending, when we’re told God will judge us for everything we ever did, is actually another sign of the meaning of our lives. If everything I do will be judged, then everything I do counts.
roxanne robbins on November 16, 2013 at 9:17 pm
North Korea has been heavily on my heart and this devotion is yet another reminder to pray for the people in that closed nation. The following link reveals the urgent need for believers around the world to pray for the people of North Korea and for Kim Jong-Un to change his ways.
http://misguidedchildren.com/foreign-affairs/2013/11/80-people-executed-in-north-korea
winn collier on November 23, 2013 at 11:37 pm
I love this image of joy breaking in, via Jesus.