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Don’t Stop There!
By Pastor Rick Mensing

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the
Teacher, “Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless.”  —Ecclesiastes 1:2

Maybe you feel that way?  Everything is meaningless.  Politics have run amok.  Your vote doesn’t make any difference.  The country keeps becoming more amoral every day.  Your call to live in a more moral manner goes unheeded.  Schools are being used to indoctrinate children with ungodly principles.  What you have been teaching in the home is undone by what is taught in the public school system. The list could go on and on. 

But if you stop reading Solomon’s wisdom expressed in Ecclesiastes after just verse 2, you miss the point entirely.

Solomon is expressing the feeling that enters the hearts of people.  It does seem at times that life is meaningless.  Solomon expresses this sentiment, that many people experience, to pull them back to the truth.  He expresses this truth later in chapter three when he writes, “I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I knowthat there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.  That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.  God does it so that people will fear Him.”  Ecclesiastes 3:10-14

Simply put, Solomon is encouraging us to do everything as though doing it unto the Lord.  Living in such a fashion will bring contentment and the Lord will work through us to bring about His good and gracious will.

Do not be perturbed.  Do not be distressed.  Do not be consumed by the evil you see around you.  Place your heart and trust in the Lord and the eternity He is bringing about through the Savior Jesus.  Life is not meaningless as it is lived to the glory of God and the building of His eternal kingdom.  As Solomon so wonderfully states, “I know that everything God does will endure forever.”  

Remember, Christ faced such circumstances and felt the same feelings, “Does My life matter?  Will My life make a difference?”  He faced those thoughts and feelings in the power of His Father’s love for Him!  He trusted the heavenly Father was doing amazing things even when life was at its lowest point.  Remember what He said, when all seemed meaningless, when all seemed lost?  “Father, into Your hands I commend My Spirit.”  And look what the Father did through Jesus’ death, our forgiveness, and His resurrection, our life eternal!   

It is our heavenly Father Who brings deep meaning and profound purpose, even at the lowest points of our lives.  While we are experiencing intense feelings of meaninglessness and the voice of satan is whispering, “Your life is worthless.”, that the heavenly  Father is often doing His most profound and meaningful work in us and through us.  It was that way for Jesus.  It is that way for us.

What a joy to know that He is bringing about His eternal purposes in us and through us!  That is a life worth living!  You and I are living lives that have meaning and purpose, by God’s grace, through Jesus Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Christ keep you from feelings of meaninglessness for His Name’s sake.

In Christ,
Pastor Rick