http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1&version=NIV
Now. Fight off your sudden urge to grab the nearest bottle of Zoloft and read on.
There's a lot of meaningless things are there not?
I love this book, and I love the journey this writer takes us on as he processes his thoughts, and here's why.
Most people have a worldview that would amount to something like karma, or something called dualism.
Basically, if we're good people, if we put "good" into the world, we'll get "good" back. Good things will happen back to us. If we do evil things, then we'll notice more and more "bad" things start to come into our world, and somehow, by the time we die, it's all evened out. The cosmos has given back to us exactly the same amount of good and evil we gave to it.
It's the most popular way people make sense of the world
But other people would cry foul over that idea. Many are convinced that they've in fact put MUCH more good into the world than they've ever gotten from it, furthermore they've seen horrible people not get the justice they deserved.
The jerk wins the lottery, the kindhearted end up laid off.
Have you ever followed all of the rules all of the time and still got screwed over?
In that case,
Ecclesiastes is for you.
Solomon, (the writer of this book) has done almost everything right all of the time, and still is vastly unhappy and unfulfilled.
Karma and dualism are nothing new to this age, and many of the people in his day believed the very same thing.
Crops aren't growing? Someone must have done something evil.
Karma, like many boxes, is a box God will not fit into.
If we can't use karma to make sense of our world, (or our God) what then do we use?
First. Look at this picture.
This is Richard Phillips, the boat captain who was taken hostage in 2009 and then rescued and safely returned to his family.
Every single expression made by every single person in this photograph says the same thing.
Life is precious.
A gift even.
That's quite different from all of the "meaningless" things the teacher shows us in Ecclesiastes.
Most people approach God, or religion, because they need or want the "meaningless" things fixed, or worked out a certain way, and if they can re-arrange or change the "meaningless" parts, then they'll end up with a new understanding or enlightenment they didn't have before.
The teacher in Ecclesiastes as you'll read, literally had it all and did it all, and is here to tell you that doesn't work or make you happy in any way.
He's tried karma. You'll also notice he's attempted the "do what makes you feel good" philosophy and that too ended up letting him down.
Without getting too existential, clearly Solomon believes there is fulfillment to be found, he just hasn't yet discovered it in the first two chapters.
James 1:17 - Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change.
Fulfillment, I would argue, might be found in something I'm going to call "Giftology".
The simple idea that it's all a gift. Your life, your rewards, even your challenges.
Giftology helps to remove the occasionally ingrained entitlement to be happy many of us carry around. When we're able to see that literally everything we have or have become has been given more than it's been earned it opens our eyes to some of the amazing ways God works in the world.
Everything is a gift, your money, your home, your individualized sports jersey that's really an inside joke between you and your friends.
But it goes futher than that.
With Giftology, even the bad things are gifts. The parking ticket you just found, the leak in the roof, the diagnosis you just recieved.
Good or Evil, if it's been given to you there's a way you can further the kingdom with it.
And figuring how to do that, might make you happier than you think.
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