Everything is Meaningless.

photo from jillian bogarde photography

   Have you ever read the book of Ecclesiastes? Well, up until a couple months ago I was quite certain that it was one of the most depressing books in the Bible (have you seen how many times “everything is meaningless” is mentioned?).

   Up until the day I dove into Ecclesiastes, my understanding of this book (now, understand that I was raised in a Christian family, went to church all my life, attended a Christian school from 4^th grade until graduation, and have been born again since seven years old and yet this was still my idea of Ecclesiastes… yikes, I know…) was that “everything has its time” and that Solomon was a wise, but depressing individual. That’s it. All that from 19 years of being in the church…

   Now this is not a post about how poor of a Christian I am… though I’m doing a pretty good job of saying that without explicitly saying it haha. *face palm*

   I want to bring to you two main things I learned from Ecclesiastes. I hope that this is a good reminder of things you may have heard many times or even a way to learn something you may have never heard before.

Number One. Only God can satisfy. This book does an amazingly and painfully good job undermining every prop on which we might rely apart from God. How meaningless everything is apart from God is stressed over and over and over. (ch. 1 v. 2,14, ch. 2 v. 1, 11, 15, 17, 19, 23, 26… and on and on.)

   Now, if you guys read my “Hello my name is…” introductory post on this blog, you would know that I am a theater major. My biggest dream is to be able to actually work in some kind of job involving theater or movies or anything of that sort. For the longest time I was relying on that being what I would measure my happiness on in the future.

   I didn’t realize that I was using God. After all, my goal in life was to serve God with my life through theater. That in itself is not a bad goal. In fact, that is something we are called to do—serve God with our lives. Up until then, I had considered serving and being with God as me asking God to fulfill MY dreams of serving him and thanking him for things that were great in MY life. It just became so much more about ME, rather than God. I had created an idol out of my dreams. Our lives are not to be fulfilled by our dreams or material things, or people, or anything besides God. Nothing but God can truly satisfy me. I find the best way to keep God as the center of my life to spend time with him, reading and studying the Bible, and praying. It’s hard. Life is a busy, messy thing, but I find that when I do find myself taking that time in my day, life becomes a little less messy and more about God.

Number two. I can’t control any of this. It’s a terrifying thought. However, it’s more comforting when you think that God is in control of it all. I love the quote “There is something comforting about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He’s doing.” God’s in control. There’s nothing we can do about that. Chapter 3, verse 14a even says, “I also concluded that whatever God does, that’s the way it’s going to be, always.”

    This past year I did a gap year in between high school and college to save up money (college is EXPENSIVE). I fought it. I hated the idea of waiting a whole year to continue on with my life plans. While I worked, my friends went off to college, started on the track to their future careers, made new friends, and experienced life on their own. However much I missed not experiencing those things when everyone else did, I wouldn’t trade this past year and what I learned for that. Now that I can look back, I want to kick myself for not trusting God and his timing. If I had gone to college this past year, I don’t think I would have been ready. I have become so much more confident in myself and who God made me to be, I discovered what I wanted to major in (I had to stop being so afraid and just go for what I knew I truly wanted to do with my life), and I met some amazing people who have encouraged me and made this past year so much fun. God’s plans truly are better, even if we don’t see it at first.

I hope this encouraged you or made you think. What do you guys think of Ecclesiastes? Have you found any other incredible tidbits from this amazing book? Let me know!

                                                                           Thanks lovelies,

                                                                     Kirsten

P.S. – I found one of my new favorite verses in Ecclesiastes. The NIV version says: “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the laps of fools.” The Message version made me actually laugh out loud. “Don’t be quick to fly off the handle. Anger boomerangs. You can spot a fool by the lumps on his head.” Hahahaha I love it!