Month: August 2013
Where Does Meaning Come From?
Recently, I have felt the futility of life and it is somewhat depressing. No matter what we do, the end is the same. Death will come to every person regardless of whether you are wealthy or poor; obedient or strong-willed; wise or foolish; hard-working or lazy; good or evil; broken or healed. This thought makes me feel purposeless; but even if I had a purpose it would just be futile. I know that the life I live now affects my life-after-death but my day-to-day activities seem like a futile waste to age slowly toward my eventual end.
With this perspective, I read Solomon’s words so much differently:
Everything is meaningless…completely meaningless!
What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes.
Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content. History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.
I came to hate all my hard work here on earth, for I must leave to others everything I have earned. And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless!
What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.
So I saw that there is nothing better for people than to be happy in their work. That is why we are here! No one will bring us back from death to enjoy life after we die.
Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there’s no use arguing with God about your destiny. (Ecclesiastes 1:1, 1:3-4, 1:8-9, 2:18-19, 3:9-13, 3:22, 6:10 NLT)
I take comfort in knowing that God knows what He is doing. I can enjoy my life (which he has given me) regardless of how short or how long it may be. The first purpose of my life is to live, because once I’m gone, there’s no coming back to finish the tasks God has set for me.
Noteworthy Humdrums 