Chapter 2

So, after the preacher points out that everything is pointless, he tells us what he did to try to make things make sense.
The first thing he did was self-indulgence. He gathered all the good and beautiful things he could find. Art, wine, dancers, gardens, great food, he had everything. Anything he saw that he wanted, he grabbed. There was no restraint. In terms I can relate to it was like having every pair of shoes you ever took a moment’s notice of, every pretty color of eye shadow, every yummy bite, every beautiful piece of scrapbook paper, everything you wanted right down to and including the shiny orange Harley. Then, he looked at everything he had and all the work he had done to get it. It was nothing in the end. Like the quiet that falls after all the gifts are opened at Christmas. There is no reason it’s sad but it is so sad. All the wonders and magic of the day is gone and all the credit card bills are coming and its nothing. It is just stuff. He says “and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” (Ecc 2:11)
I think of that part of the book like college years. You party and party and then one day, you decide to try something else. The preacher decided to try living wisely. He decides that it is a good idea to live wisely. “Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.”(2: 13) I’m thinking great. All we have to do to be happy is to live wisely. Things are starting to look better. But then he says “And yet I perceived that the same event happens to them all” (14) What? Live wisely and things are still going to go bad? Well, yes. We all go through the same stuff. We are all born. We are all teenagers. We all die. We are all forgotten in time. This is life. It is “pointless” to think that just because you are wise, you can change anything.
Then when he decided that being wise wouldn’t help all that much, he decides to think about work. He figures out that when he dies, everything he did will go to someone else. Everything is looking pretty bleak at this point. But then God steps in and we know that once God steps in things get so much better.
“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (2:24-25) The preacher, guided by the Holy spirit, says that only in God can we eat and have enjoyment. This is the beginning of the love story. This is where the handsome man smiles at the beautiful woman. God provides us our food and drink and work. In Him we find enjoyment in all that we do. All the vanity of our lives is wiped out in the relationship with our Lord. When we see the love He holds for us, we realize that even if everything else is pointless, He is THE POINT.
Our God created us and loves us. He knows what we need to find enjoyment in life. He knows we need good things to eat and a job to do. Jesus says “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11) This does not mean that things will be easy. Things will not be easy. Bad things will happen. We just have to know that even while the bad things are happening, God will provide us with a joy beyond understanding. That He is there and waiting for us to call on Him for the help that only he can give.
Solomon didn’t have Jesus. He was before the reconciliation. Yet, he knew that God was the only reason for life. There have been many periods in my life where I’ve fought depression; many times when it seemed that everything really was pointless. In these times, I’ve lost sight of this one key, even though everything else is pointless, God is the point. Our relationship with Him will bring us out of the darkness of depression and into His beautiful light. God knows that we can get depressed. That’s why he had the preacher write this book. Life is hard. Life hurts. It is only through His grace and love that we can enjoy this world.
If you don’t know Jesus, you don’t know how it is that even in the darkest moments there is light. You don’t know what it means to be truly free. If you don’t know Jesus, you probably think one of two things-either I’m crazy or you need what I have. I know the answer. I am crazy but because of Jesus, I’m free. You can be free too.