My Lawn and The Wisdom of Solomon: Part 2

In my last post I shared my struggle with coveting my neighbor’s lawn. It wasn’t actually his lawn that I wanted–what I was really after was the admiration of all my neighbors. I wanted to be the guy with the best lawn–that’s what I valued.

What we value is important to our spiritual growth. This is why maintaining the right value system, although challenging, is important.

So let’s pick up where we left off. If you could have anything in life you wanted, what should you want? What should the most important thing be?

Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, helps us with the answer by showing us what we should not value.

When Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, he started off by introducing himself and then he just jumped write in and wrote:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

If Solomon wanted to sell books or get people to read his blog, this was not the way to begin! Since he did not need the money from book sales, he instead could start his book by stating directly what was on his mind.

Therefore, he begins by saying life is utterly meaningless.

This does not mean everything we do in life has no meaning. Rather Solomon is making the point that nothing in our worldly lives has the power to satisfy permanently. Ultimately, the things of the world are of no value.

This is huge because it means that worldly things have no ultimate value. This means valuing worldly things does not have the power to help our spiritual growth. It’s even worse. Valuing worldly things hurts our spiritual growth.

Next Solomon asks a rhetorical question:

“What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?”

Good question Solomon! What do we gain from all our worldly labor and from all of our “toiling” under the sun?

The answer in Solomon’s mind is “nothing.” We spend our whole lives working for nothing that lasts. Nothing we have can endure beyond our earthly lives. This is why Solomon said life is meaningless.

This reminds me again of the seagull fight on the beach I described many blog posts ago. Two seagulls were fighting over a piece of hose. After about ten minutes one of the seagulls won and possessed the small piece of hose all to himself.

I imagine at that moment he felt very victorious. Yet what did he win? Bragging rights maybe, if seagulls brag. He toiled in the fight and ultimately ended up with nothing of value. His fight was meaningless because what he achieved did not matter.

This is what Solomon’s words are saying about the way our lives can end up. These are uncomfortable words. They suggest our lives could be meaningless as well. Therefore we strive to dismiss Solomon’s words, to say they are not true, to brush them under the rug and forget about them.

If we cannot make ourselves forget Solomon’s words, we pretend we are not living a meaningless life. It is easy to read these words, and, while agreeing with them in principle, say: “They do not apply to my life.”

The problem is that the wisest man who ever lived spoke these words. Since neither of us is as wise as Solomon, instead of brushing his declaration aside, we should seek to understand Solomon’s words.

Here are a few questions to think about.

Why would Solomon say that life is meaningless?

What does the meaningless of life mean for you and your spiritual growth?

Thankfully, we don’t have to live our lives toiling for worldly things. We can seek spiritual growth. We can work toward acquiring spiritual treasure and a spiritual inheritance that will have eternal impact and meaning (Matthew 6:19-21).

Work for God’s Kingdom. All other toil is meaningless.