Rev. Don Campbell
Ecclesiastes 1-6
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, June 19, 2019
“LIFE UNDER THE SUN”
“Life sucks, but that’s the way it is, so why worry about it.” This was the cynical outlook on life as viewed by a 15-year-old boy in a Bible class. Solomon could relate to the cynicism, if not the language. After having tasted of all that life on earth had to offer, Solomon lamented, “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NIV, 1984). Solomon spoke these words some three thousand years ago, but they might have come from the pen or lips of a modern existentialist philosopher, novelist, playwright, artist, songwriter, or theologian. They might also have come from deep inside the empty soul of the average person who works nine to five trying to make a living.
Solomon had the wherewithal to pursue his heart’s desire in all matters and his conclusion was: “I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight. I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:12-18, ESV).
The key to understanding Ecclesiastes is the phrase “under the sun,” which means life as viewed from the human perspective. Leave God out of the picture and we are simply nomads destined to end in dust. Wisdom, pleasure, fame, money, labor, and morality all have their places in life, but they can never occupy that place in our heart that God has reserved for himself. God has made everything appropriate in its time, Solomon tells us, and “He has put eternity in their hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). What a thought—eternity in their hearts! God has so fashioned man that there is what we might call a God-shaped vacuum in man’s heart, a vacuum that can be filled by nothing but God. We may search for life in wisdom, pleasure, money, or whatever the craze of the age may be; but we will not find fulfillment until we are filled with the God of eternity. As St. Augustine has well said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart of man is restless until it finds rest in Thee.”
CONNECTIONS
1. Does your life have meaning, purpose, and direction, or are you a wandering star? (Jude 1:13)
2. If “things” dominate our lives, we leave no room for God. If God fills our lives, there is room for all good things (James 1:17). If our lives are overcrowded with things, where is God’s place?
