MISERY OF MEANINGLESSNESS

“Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless’” – Ecclesiastes 1:2 (NIV)

To live without Purpose is to wallow in the MISERY of MEANINGLESSNESS: “Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’ What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?” (Ecc.1: 2-3, NIV). These were the words of King Solomon whom the Bible described as the wisest man on earth. He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes late in his life, looking back on a time when he tried to live apart from God. Solomon didn’t beat around the bush in describing what life without God amounts to – “Meaningless! Meaningless! … Everything is meaningless.” He began the book of Ecclesiastes with this phrase, and he ended it with the same phrase: “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “All is vanity” (Ecc.12:8, NKJV). Vanity means Meaningless or Emptiness!

Repetition is a form of emphasis. The word “meaningless” or “vanity” is repeated about 40 times in Ecclesiastes. In effect, Solomon was saying, “Life without God is emptiness – Zero! After a lifetime of in-depth reflection and personal experience, he wrote this book to reveal the single most important lesson anyone of any age will learn about life: Everything is nothing without God. Only God can make our lives matter. As part of ancient Eastern wisdom, Ecclesiastes predates the great Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. It is part of the Old Testament Wisdom Literature: Job studies the problem evil and human suffering; Song of Songs discusses the beauty of love and pleasure; Proverbs teaches how best to live our lives; while Ecclesiastes explores the meaning of a seemingly meaningless life.

Ecclesiastes is one book of the Bible in which God is totally silent! It is the long monologue of one man, not a dialogue between a man and his God, as is common in the rest of the Scriptures. The author is simply referred to as “the Teacher” or “Preacher,” referring to King Solomon. However, God’s silence is so loud as to reveal that outside of a divine connection with Him, life is meaningless. Attaining wealth, wisdom, and pleasure has no lasting significance outside of God. Solomon highlights the mundanity, monotony, and emptiness of life outside of an intimate connection with God. Despite all his wisdom, wealth and splendour, his writings came across as downright depressing.

However, all of Solomon’s remarks about the emptiness of life are for a purpose: To lead us to seek fulfilment in God alone! He was not trying to destroy all hope, but to direct our hopes to the One Who can truly fulfil them and give our life meaning. Solomon affirms the value of knowledge, relationships, work, and pleasure, but only in their proper place. Everything temporal must be seen in the light of the eternal. Our God is not some far-off force of nature. He is in the details of our lives. He never intended to leave our life up for chance, luck, or fate!