Everything under the sun is meaningless, like chasing the wind. Eccl.1:14
How
we must be careful lest we fall into the snare of teachings that
promise everything wonderful in this present life, but have no ability
in themselves to deliver. When we fall into this snare, we end up in an
endless pursuit of nothing, and as someone rightly put it, it's like
traveling on a road that leads nowhere. But the Preacher was most apt in
describing it as chasing the wind.
There is
nothing in itself apart from God that is capable of resulting in the
great life transformation that our souls so earnestly long for. Unlike
animals who find contentment in being what they were made to be, man is
engaged in an endless pursuit of becoming something more than he was
made to be. To achieve this goal, he scavenges every aspect of life,
ranging from money, sex, power, learning, pleasure and fame, all to the
end of becoming something more than he is at the present time.
It
is this endless pursuit that engaged the attention of the Preacher in
Ecclesiastes, and he concluded rightly that all such pursuits and
attainments, when they occur, are futile because nothing attained in the
energy of human endeavour is capable of satiating the deepest longing
of the soul of man. Only God who created man and placed these deep
longings in his soul can fully satisfy them. Man's search for fulfilment
through the works of his hands, the Preacher declared, is chasing the
wind. How true!
The unsatisfiable longing in
the soul of man should call his attention to God. After the pursuit for
money, sex, fame, power, and knowledge are attained, if all of these
fail to satiate the soul, then man should realize that there is more to
life than all of these. Life apart from God, no matter its attainments,
is meaningless, because it still leaves us searching for meaning.
Nothing under the sun satisfies. Only in God can true satisfaction be
found. But how can man know an invisible God? To make Himself knowable,
God became a man. It is only in knowing this Gon-Man that the soul's
longing can be satisfied.
Toni
