“It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.”- Blaise Pascal
Everyone has a certain self-image that they wish to convey to the entire world, and to be honest, the image that we convey is usually contradictory to what is actually going on within ourselves. As humans, we constantly are molding and sculpting our lives into being whatever our hearts desire them to be. We have certain ideals, which we believe to be the most important things to attain in life, and then we put all of our efforts into achieving whatever those ideals may be. The difficulty that comes along with this is that as Christians, we attempt to tack God on the end of whatever it is we’re doing. As the opportunities present themselves in our lives to strive after these ideals, we attempt to make them into some “service to God,” and say that we’re doing them for “godly” reasons, rather than the true selfish desires causing them. For many people, selfish desires drive a lot of the things that they do, and for many Christians, when they are done going after whatever it is that stole their attention, they try to claim that it was for pious reasons, rather than self-centered desires.
The idea of striving for human cravings, which are worthless, finds itself extremely prevalent in our society, and causes a lot of destruction in the lives of people. Throughout the world, people will literally give all of themselves in search of whatever they believe will make them truly happy in their lives, and either will find temporary happiness or will die trying. In Ecclesiastes, we are given the perfect picture of what it’s like to go completely sold-out for fleshly desires, and to realize what comes out of the search for them.
“So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”- Ecclesiastes 2: 9-11
What the author is explaining in the passage is that he became, in human standards, the greatest and most powerful man in all of Jerusalem. In terms of fleshly desires, he had them all, and if he did not possess them, he worked until he could. He kept from himself nothing he felt he deserved, and he found temporary happiness in all of things that he found in his desires. Don’t hear me wrong, human desires will bring you happiness, but the happiness is fleeting and eventually will lead to a different desire. At a certain point in his search, the author arrived at the realization that everything he was striving after was futile, it all held no value to himself as a person. Everything “under the sun,” or of earthly origin, will bring no true joy or worth to the person who is attempting to find it.
In daily life, everyone attempts to find the things that they believe will give themselves true joy or peace, but never do we search in the right places. As humans, we all believe to know, based on our own knowledge we have attained, what truly is the best option for us, and what will truly benefit our lives and those around us the most. All of the things we try to find and utilize are earthly things, and we center our entire lives on them. We completely ignore the fact that God is moving within our hearts, and we limit His role as much as possible from truly affecting our inner beings. We think that somehow we are doing God a great service by rooting ourselves in these earthly things, and that He is somehow benefiting from us gaining our own desires. We ignore the fact that all things are from Him, and we try to live life on our own terms. People, in turn, make up all of these little rules which we deem necessary to live by, and if somehow a person ends up living opposite the rules that we have established based on our own understanding, then they are living in opposition to God. Yet the ones who create the rules are living according the world, and the ones who truly strive for God are being called unruly and enemies of God.
“I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.”- Ecclesiastes 3: 14-15
Here is the simple concept that everyone forgets in their day to day lives (myself included), everything that we strive after and everything we have is FROM GOD. If we strive after something for our own accord, it is worthless, because nothing we have will do us any good if it is apart from God. Many people genuinely believe that enforcing their own ideologies on people is somehow doing good for God’s sake, but in doing this they have completely removed God from the situation and taken the burden solely on themselves. Opposite to this, people believe that they are genuinely seeking after something that will truly bring them joy, but once you have removed God from your intentions, you have rendered that desires incapable of providing joy. GOD IS AT THE ROOT OF ALL THINGS, WHEN YOU REMOVE HIM FROM THE CORE OF EVERYTHING YOU DO, YOU LIMIT HIM AND YOURSELF. The thing that is essential to realize is that God does not need our help with His plans for our lives (Jeremiah 29:11), He knows His own plans; on the other hand, we need God at every point in our lives, because when we remove Him from our life we became nothing but a vapor in the wind. God is the only thing that gives us significance and purpose apart from Him we are nothing.
Know that God loves you more than anything; He died on the cross so that He would be able to spend eternity with His creation (which you are apart of). When you remove him from the center of everything you do, you not only experience temporary happiness, you will never experience anything greater than what you can find, which we are told is nothing but a vapor in the wind.
Take His words to heart, and have the ears to hear him speaking to you.
God Bless,
Trip Starkey
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