Where there’s people there’s a need for somebody to teach the ways of the Lord, lest they go heathen.”
–Elmer Kelton (The Buckskin Line)
“So teach us to number our days, That we might gain a heart of wisdom.”
–Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)
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Have you ever asked yourself, What is the purpose of life?” Or maybe a better question, What are you doing with your life? There are so many expectations for life–what others think, what your parents think, what the politicians and media think, what you think, and most importantly–what does God think. What is expected of you? Are you living up to your potential? Have you even considered what your potential is?
“Most men live lives of quiet desperation.”
–Henry David Thoreau
[Life is] “an onion–you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
–Carl Sandburg
“The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not that it is predominately painful, but that it is lacking in any sense.”
–H.L. Menchem
Do any of the above fit your view of life? Are you that discontented? Maybe you a feeling what Solomon said, that life is vanity–all is vanity.
We live in a world of lies. Let’s take a look at a few of them:
1) Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.
2) Every day in every way our world is getting better.
3) There’s a light at the end of every tunnel.
4) Things are never as bad as they seem.
And according to Epictetus, “If you don’t like the terms [of life], it is always in your power to leave them.”
“‘Everything is meaningless,’ says the Teacher, ‘utterly meaningless!'” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NLT) The term “vanity” or as the NLT translates it, “meaningless” is used 38 times in the Book of Ecclesiastes. It literally means “breath”–anything that is transitory. W.J. Deane puts it this way, “The vanity of all humans and mundane things, and the oppressive monotony of their continued recurrence.” What goes around, comes around.
Life can get that way but there is an answer, there is a cure–life in Jesus Christ. “Vanity alludes us to the uselessness and emptiness of life which is not lived in fellowship with God, and in accord with the divine will.” (Harper) In this crazy, insane world we have hope in Christ. LIfe apart from Him has no meaning and cannot produce true happiness, therefore, it might truly be called vanity/meaningless. Without Christ human desire is never satisfied.
“Our lower aims and possessions become vanities to us only when we seek in them that supreme satisfaction which He who has ‘put eternity into our hearts’ designed us to find only in Him and in serving Him.”
–Samuel Cox
Without Jesus Christ in our lives Solomon is correct in saying, “What profit has man left from all his toil at which he toils under the sun? [Is life worth living?]” (Ecclesiastes 1:3, Amplified) As I get older I look at those who want “things” and I wonder–why. More and more I see people seeking for the “good life” or for what they deem might be the good life and forsake the Giver of life. The seeking after things is some of the saddest things of human life–the errors which divert men from their true aim, and plunge them into various and growing misery.
–Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)
————————
Have you ever asked yourself, What is the purpose of life?” Or maybe a better question, What are you doing with your life? There are so many expectations for life–what others think, what your parents think, what the politicians and media think, what you think, and most importantly–what does God think. What is expected of you? Are you living up to your potential? Have you even considered what your potential is?
“Most men live lives of quiet desperation.”
–Henry David Thoreau
[Life is] “an onion–you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
–Carl Sandburg
“The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not that it is predominately painful, but that it is lacking in any sense.”
–H.L. Menchem
Do any of the above fit your view of life? Are you that discontented? Maybe you a feeling what Solomon said, that life is vanity–all is vanity.
We live in a world of lies. Let’s take a look at a few of them:
1) Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.
2) Every day in every way our world is getting better.
3) There’s a light at the end of every tunnel.
4) Things are never as bad as they seem.
And according to Epictetus, “If you don’t like the terms [of life], it is always in your power to leave them.”
“‘Everything is meaningless,’ says the Teacher, ‘utterly meaningless!'” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NLT) The term “vanity” or as the NLT translates it, “meaningless” is used 38 times in the Book of Ecclesiastes. It literally means “breath”–anything that is transitory. W.J. Deane puts it this way, “The vanity of all humans and mundane things, and the oppressive monotony of their continued recurrence.” What goes around, comes around.
Life can get that way but there is an answer, there is a cure–life in Jesus Christ. “Vanity alludes us to the uselessness and emptiness of life which is not lived in fellowship with God, and in accord with the divine will.” (Harper) In this crazy, insane world we have hope in Christ. LIfe apart from Him has no meaning and cannot produce true happiness, therefore, it might truly be called vanity/meaningless. Without Christ human desire is never satisfied.
“Our lower aims and possessions become vanities to us only when we seek in them that supreme satisfaction which He who has ‘put eternity into our hearts’ designed us to find only in Him and in serving Him.”
–Samuel Cox
Without Jesus Christ in our lives Solomon is correct in saying, “What profit has man left from all his toil at which he toils under the sun? [Is life worth living?]” (Ecclesiastes 1:3, Amplified) As I get older I look at those who want “things” and I wonder–why. More and more I see people seeking for the “good life” or for what they deem might be the good life and forsake the Giver of life. The seeking after things is some of the saddest things of human life–the errors which divert men from their true aim, and plunge them into various and growing misery.