These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem. “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:1–2)
There once lived a man who had the time, money, and energy to take a prolonged, searching journey. Not just a mind trip. Not across the imaginary back roads of his memory, but into life itself. Because no one was able to restrain him, he held nothing back. Thankfully, he kept an accurate journal of his journey, available for all to read.
The man’s name was Solomon. The journal he kept is a book in the Bible named Ecclesiastes. The title means “preacher,” or “one who addresses an assembly.” In the book, Solomon speaks to all of us about all of life.
I should tell you ahead of time that the journey this man took, while mind-boggling, left him deflated, depressed, and disillusioned. The best word is empty . . . his most often repeated description of how he felt. In fact, Solomon’s motto appears on the frontispiece of his journal: “Vanity of vanities . . . Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (1:2 NASB 1995).
In today’s terms, it is “a wisp of a vapor . . . a puff of wind . . . a hollow, empty ring!” That is the way Solomon described how he felt before he took his journey, while he endured his journey, and after it was over. Nothing satisfied. Nothing that he saw, discovered, attempted, produced, initiated, or concluded resulted in lasting significance or personal satisfaction.
But wait. Before we allow ourselves to accept his desperate, sweeping admission, we must ask why it was such a pointless, empty treadmill. Why wouldn’t the man who was king, with such an endless supply of financial resources, find something—anything—that would have purpose?
This is a good time to clarify Solomon’s perspective, especially since it’s the same perspective most people operate from today. To quote from his own testimony, it is an “under-the-sun” perspective. Time after time, Solomon mentions his horizontal, strictly human viewpoint. In virtually every major section of his journal he uses the words “under the sun” and “under heaven.” Because he seldom looks “above the sun” to find reassurance, life seems drab and depressing, hopelessly boring.
Despite the extent to which he went to find happiness, because he left God out of the picture, nothing satisfied. It never will. Satisfaction in life under the sun will never occur until there is a meaningful connection with the living Lord above the sun. Nevertheless, we, like Solomon, continue to try to find meaning in life, only to wind up on a dead-end road called Emptiness.
