The following selection is Martin Luther’s comments on Ecclesiastes 1:15: “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered.”
Cicero writing from his own experience says, “Alas! How constantly it happens that as sure as anything has been devised, and planned for the best, and with the greatest industry, it turns out so badly and so strangely!” God however herein does well, that He blows away and brings to nothing whatever man meditates and undertakes. For as soon as any plan of us men succeeds a little, from that hour we begin to take the honor to ourselves. Forthwith ambition begins to stir within us, and we think to ourselves, this I have done, for this are my country and fellow men indebted to me; and we grasp at the honor which belongs alone and entirely to God. Wherefore, if God is to continue Lord, and to assert and maintain His first commandment, He must only suffer the lesser part of our thoughts to turn out well, and both in the courts and councils of kings and princes, and in all other affairs, so soon as, and whenever anything has been deliberated and determined, show that the words “if God wills it” still retain their full force.
Heathen and ungodly men who alike fancy that it is enough if they themselves have resolved, must in this wise learn that if there has been One absent from their counsels, who has a clear right to a voice therein, and His name is God. Therefore is it the best course and the highest wisdom, to leave and commend all to God, not to plague and worry ourselves too much with our own thoughts, but to follow the wise man who at last, after great experience declared — “Let things go as they go, for do what we may they will go as they go.”
And how frequently do we see that cunning and prudent rulers, and people who in other respects are exalted and wise, do the greatest mischief, whilst setting themselves with all earnestness, with great restlessness, labor and industry to make all things good. For on earth, under the sun, there never can be established a state of things so good that all will move on evenly, that there will not be still many imperfections, many faults.
Wherefore, the best thing of all, is to build and confide heartily on God, to commit the ordering of all to Him, to let Him rule, to pray as the Lord taught us — “thy kingdom come” — and meanwhile patiently to bear and suffer all manner of wrong from the ungodly and wicked, leaving our cause in the hands of the great Judge.
Although you are wise and holy, and pious, and notice that many things go wrong, you have notwithstanding no power to make all straight that is crooked. Do the work with which you are entrusted, apply yourself with all industry to your calling. All else that refuses to be rectified, leave to Him who is stronger and wiser than you, to the good God in Heaven who can rule churches, country, people, princes, house estate, wife, and children much better than you.