“Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me; for all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.”( Ecclesiastes 2:17)
Chuck Swindoll writes:
In this ragged-edged reality called earthly existence, life is somewhere between sad and bad. All it takes is a quick look around to discover why we line up to watch fantasies that take us to galaxies far, far away. Who wouldn’t want to escape from an existence as boring and painful as ours? For many, it’s downright horrid. It’s drug abuse. It’s sleepless nights. It’s headaches. It’s heartaches. It’s hate, rape, assault, jail sentences. It’s sickness and sorrow. It’s broken lives. It’s distorted minds. Mainly, as Solomon discovered long ago, it’s empty. There’s nothing down here under the sun that will give you and me a sense of lasting satisfaction. It is planned that way! How else would we realize our need for the living God?
I don’t care how good your professional practice is, much of it is boring. I don’t care how big your house is or how exciting your future is. I don’t care how hard you work or how large your paycheck or how sincere your efforts, when you boil life down to the nubbies . . . when the lights are turned off at night, you’re back to reality–its boring and horribly empty. To quote Solomon the realist, it is like chasing the wind.
You work so that you can make money, so that you can spend it, so that you can work and make more money, so that you can spend it, so that you can get more, which will mean you spend more, and you work harder to make more. So goes this endless cycle called ‘striving after wind.’
That explains why people will line up by the millions to view a fantasy on film and sit in silent amazement at someone’s imaginary world of imaginary characters who do imaginary things–because life under the sun is so dreadfully, unchangingly boring.
To put it bluntly, life on planet Earth without God is the pits. And if I may repeat my point (Solomon does numerous times), that’s the way God designed it. He made it like that. He placed within us that God-shaped vacuum that only He can fill. Until He is there, nothing satisfies
