There is only One who can fill the emptiness of this life. Study Ecclesiastes
The Extent of Futility
Thomas Edison was so driven by the prospect of his next inventions, he would rarely allow himself a full and sound night of sleep. The genius believed sleep was merely a waste of time. When he could no longer fight his body’s plea for rest, he would lay upright in a back room holding steal balls in his hand. Once his body cycled into deeper sleep, his hand would drop, causing the steal balls to fall into a metal bowl strategically placed on the floor beneath his hand. The clang of metal hitting metal woke him and he would get back to his work.
Whether driven by the competition of another inventor biting at his heels for the next breakthrough, or other cravings within him, Edison was willing to forfeit sleep and anything else that would keep him from success.
“I saw that all labor and all skillful work is due to one person’s jealousy of another. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.” Solomon reveals in Ecclesiastes 4:4.
Referring to himself as the Preacher, Solomon possessed the ability to search for ultimate meaning in wisdom, pleasure, building projects, wealth-nothing gives him the satisfaction or meaning he pursues. His conclusion: all is hebel. Hebel is the Hebrew word for emptiness, but a vapor. It is used 40 times in the book of Ecclesiastes to reveal that the endeavors of life under the sun are but a puff of breath.
Solomon concludes, it is the unhappy business of life to experience and finally recognize that all our toil and anxious striving have the end result of a vapor. It all fades away. The Preacher’s Resolve is found in Ecclesiastes 2:20-21 “So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it”.
While inventions and modern luxuries are new and enjoyed, the Preacher reveals the human condition that remains unchanged. Man cannot change the brokenness of humanity and our monotonous existence. Life may seem easier and technology and innovation persist; yet the human heart and mind condition remains broken, lonely aging, selfish, searching for meaning.
Consider something as simple as the reinvention of clothing. Within the last decade we were told by fashion gurus that our “Mom jeans” had to go. We listened and spent our money on the “better” style of jeans, more flattering to our figures, more youthful and acceptable in our culture. But last year they told us high wasted jeans were the new must-have style. What? You mean “Mom jeans” are now the absolute thing for the woman who wants to present herself together and in-tune with the world? No thank you, I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I’m choosing not to run in circles spending money and energy on the endless cycles of which the fashion gods tempt to enslave me.
Solomon applied all of his wisdom to figure out the ultimate meaning of riches, knowledge, pleasure, science, time, and death. The Preacher has no quick answer to the residue of futility our human experience leaves. He is a fellow human in this rat race-deeply desiring an explanation. No band aid can cover the gaping wound of our unanswered questions.
By walking beside Solomon through this wisdom book, we learn to answer wisely takes time. Spiritual platitudes create more harm, while honest, thoughtful answers allow room for discomfort. Solomon exalts the side of God we may not take much comfort in: “It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.” Ecclesiastes 1:13. Thus, even wisdom is limited by not having all the answers. So, we choose to walk in faith.
Theologian John Calvin believed we discover wisdom and life by means of double knowledge; knowledge of God and of ourselves” The Preacher shows us what we were made for, then he invites us to look at what has become of us. Calvin said, “Ecclesiastes opens the curtains to ourselves; as we are-that we may know God as He is.” The Preacher realizes there is good under the sun. But what is its pleasure? What is its gain?
Misplaced Longings
He lists the many pleasures he experienced first-hand under the sun: jokes , music, sex, affirmation, fame, alcohol, art, work, nature, money, and possessions. Then he concludes, we are pleased too easily by empty endeavors. We expect deep lasting satisfaction from our work and consistent gain from the pleasures we pursue and are disappointed when we still feel an emptiness. We begin to question our choice of life partner or purpose rather than glean from the One who gives us True Gain in this life! The Preacher wants us to be sad about this. The complaint is not about the good things themselves, but against their empty promise to bring us gain. We have created unrealistic expectations of even the good things of life to fill us up. But, “Even the most beautiful and good thing has a weariness within its bones” (1:8)
My husband and I recently attended a wedding where we heard the pastor tell the couple, “You were never complete until you met one another.” This kind of thinking perpetuates the romantic myth that another person fulfills our every need and completes us. No, another broken person, though daily transformed by Jesus if they know Him, cannot fully know us. As long as we believe that, our hearts will ache when we wake up ten or twenty years later to the realization that our partner is just as selfish as we are. Then what? Do we start questioning whether we married the wrong person? Do we begin looking for another who will finally understanding us? We misplace the true longings of our heart.
We put similar expectations upon our friends to know and meet our every need. We look to job title, career expertise, or our children to satisfy our need to be known.But Solomon forces us to see, Even the best of days-at the end, we ask “what then? Is this all?” Life has become so redundant so “daily”. What new endeavor will rescue us from this plight? Who will finally validate our obscure meaning for existence on this planet?
There is only One who Knows us Completely
The New Testament apostle Paul reinforces the fact that our answers to life will continue to puzzle us. “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” I Corinthians 13:12. The critical truth Paul shows us is one we fail to grasp. There is One who knows us completely. The only One who fully knows us is Christ. How does that reality free your mind from the delusions of expecting others to know our every thought, love us perfectly, or validate our existence?
When we expect created things and people to fill the empty places in our soul, we will become increasingly more disillusioned and depressed about our lives. The hole in our being is too large to be met by temporal means. It is time to identify that cold, damp ache in our souls is an innate longing for the Lover of your soul. The depths and heights of God’s character will take a lifetime to experience, and He longs to be invited in to fill those voids with Himself.
The monotonous ways of life, and the passing value of all of man’s labors, draws forth one of humankind’s recurring questions, “what meaning does one have on this earth?” For even Thomas Edison, whose inventions we enjoy today, passed away and returned to the dust like every generation before him. Solomon examines both philosophies and man’s greatest endeavors fail to explain the futility of life under the sun. All pursuits, ultimately, are as futile as the passing winds. Solomon wants us to develop a skill in living, “according to Yahweh’s order. Such skill is never developed apart from practice and struggle, including the kind of intellectual struggles that the conundrums of (Solomon) provoke in those who choose to travel the path of wisdom.” [1]
Let us keep struggling to understand our pull toward empty pursuits, in order that we may integrate our lives under the sun with the help and design of our intimate Creator.
Give me you, Jesus. When I’m tempted to count on my work to fill the emptiness, remind me – only You. When I’m lonely and disappointed that the people in my life don’t notice or understand my pain – remind me, only You. When I’m buried under stuff, when I’m tempted to pursue more…more meaning, more books – may I pursue more of You . You fill the empty places in my life.
Application:
- Choose one of the pleasures mentioned by Solomon and talk about the role it plays in your life. Ecclesiastes teaches us there are limits to pleasure. What pleasures do you invest in only to bring more want or more frustration in your life?
- What is it about the human heart that continues to feed its longings or test every pleasure before turning to God? Begin to ask yourself, “What is the overall profit of what I am pursuing?”
- Ask the Holy Spirit to help you recognize your heart’s craving for Jesus. Ask Him to help you identify any pleasure that you expect to meet your needs in place of turning to the One you need the most.
Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. – Augustine of Hippo
[1] Teach the Text Commentary Series, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, LifeWay