What Soloman Said

It’s the beginning of the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes where King Solomon notes: “Everything is meaningless.” This is not a happy statement.

First off, ‘Ecclesiastes,’ roughly translates as ‘teacher.’ And ‘meaningless,’ is more or less translated as ‘completely temporary.’

The Book of Ecclesiastes suggests that human wisdom has its limits. The King goes even further to list what he finds meaninglessness in: wisdom, pleasure, folly, toil and advancement.

In some ways it is encouraging to know that people of the tenth century before Christ were asking themselves questions like ‘Why am I here?” It’s a question much of society is still asking all these centuries later and with no clear answer still found.

Unfortunately, we tend to try to answer this question with stuff — money, vehicles, friends, lovers, power and position. The unfortunate part of this is that none of it is ever enough.

So if King Solomon found ‘everything under the sun’ ‘like chasing the wind,’ and ‘meaningless,’ I am not surprised to drawn the same conclusion. After all we each meet that same ending, which is physical death and no one truly knows if it is Heaven or Hell were he’ll repose.

I think best to devote everything to God and in the end he’ll give me meaning.