Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Spend time in prayer and silence with God asking Him to meet with you and speak to you.

Bible Reading

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

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

What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?  Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.  The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.  All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.

– Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.

– James 4:13-16

Devotion

Solomon began the book of Ecclesiastes with the lament that human effort seems to be directionless and without purpose. Everything is meaningless. He used the word “meaningless” 39 times throughout the book to reinforce his point. His comments focused on physical life—the kind of existence we can experience with our senses—life “under the sun”, a phrase he uses 29 times. He was describing an endless treadmill of existence entirely focused on the here and now. People live, they work and then they die. The next generation comes along and repeats the cycle. Ultimately everything apart from God is meaningless.

The Big Question

What are some of the results you see from this common, nagging sense of futility in 21st century popular culture? When have you experienced this sense of futility in your life and what were the results? How can you find meaning and purpose on the treadmill of life?

Conclude your time in prayer and silence reflecting on what you have learned.