One thing is certain living in this world, sooner or later life gets hard. No matter how hard we may try to avoid the troubles of this world, sooner or later those troubles will find us. So how do we respond when adversity hits? How should we live when life gets hard? The Teacher has some wisdom to offer us that we won’t find in the world. First, live in denial about your mortality. Second, embrace correction. Third don’t take the easy way out. Even in the difficult times God is in control and you can trust him.
One of the blessings of Ecclesiastes is the Teachers constant reminder that God has given us good gifts to enjoy under the sun. However, those gifts can easily become gods. When gifts become gods not only will we not find the security and satisfaction we are looking for we also won’t be able to enjoy what God gives us to enjoy. When we search for that which can only be found in our creator in what he was created the end result is misery.
In this section of Ecclesiastes, we find three ways of living: we can live lives of isolation, lives of surface level popularity and fame or lives where we engage in true, authentic community. As the teacher unpacks these three ways of living one things becomes clear, life is better together.
As finite beings we are constantly aware of the passage of time. As the teacher ponders the seasons of life and the rhythms of time he comes to several conclusions. First there is a purpose to all that takes place. God is overseeing and working through all the circumstances of life and everything that God is doing lasts and has purpose. Unfortunately, what God is doing may not always make sense to us, and although we desire and long for answers and understanding we may not always get it. How then should we live? We should enjoy the good gifts God gives to us and give Him thanks for them and we should trust Him in the difficult and hard times, the times where we struggle to understand what is going on, because He makes all things beautiful in His time.
Work is a gift from God. Human beings were made to find purpose and meaning through work. Work is a good thing, but work is not an ultimate thing and work can’t be the only thing. In the second half of Ecclesiastes chapter 2, Solomon extols the virtues of work and wisdom but also comes to the recognition that they are not enough. He acknowledges that in the end no matter how hard you work or how wise you are that death awaits you.
“Do what makes you happy.” That seems to be the anthem of our age. We seek out the experiences, the treasures, and the pleasures of this world hoping that they will satiate our desire for meaning and for a while they may, but it never lasts. Like a drug, they give us a temporary high but then we begin to come down and we start searching for our next fix. We think: “maybe the next time the next possession, accolade, pleasure or relationship will finally fulfill me in a way none of the others before them have.” According to Solomon, living this way and enjoying all this world has to offer, will never truly satisfy us because, in the words of C.S. Lewis: “we were made for another world.”
Since 1989, NBC has run a series of public service announcements called “The More You Know.” The goal of these short segments is to provide a piece of information that will make people’s lives better. We often operate under the assumption that the key to a better life is more knowledge, but is that true? There may not be a better person to explore this question than Solomon, the man who is known by many as the wisest man to ever live. Solomon’s conclusion is this: while wisdom is better than foolishness, it often brings with it its own sorrows and frustrations. At the end of the day wisdom alone is not enough to make life matter or to make life meaningful.
As human beings we have an innate need for meaning. We want our lives to matter, but do they? In the grand scheme of things, where generations come and generations go, where we’re told that we inhabit a universe that has existed for billions and billions of years and is made up of hundreds of billions of stars and planets, what value and meaning do our lives hold? In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon seeks an answer to the question that all of us ask at some point: “What is the meaning of life?” As we travel through this book together the answers will challenge and surprise us, but most importantly, they should lead us to examine whether we are investing our lives in things that truly matter.
In Matthew 5:16 Jesus says that there should be a difference in his followers that radiates out to the world in such a way that people see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven. Our lives should be a walking billboard for the goodness of God and the difference Jesus makes. If we are going to be the type of people who shine bright for Jesus this year there are things that we are going to need to put off and put on: in the way that we speak to and about others, in the ways we go about our work, and in the priorities and passions that drive us.