Nothing new under the sun

One of my favorite books is the book of Ecclesiastes. The writer started the book emphasizing on the word "Vanity". One will not be ready to open up himself to God until he has been gripped, as Solomon has been gripped by the emptiness and pointlessness of life. It is only when we can see clearly that life is not to be found in this world that we will be ready to move toward God.

To some life is like an interminable opera. We try to change and act in our lives to make it a better one. we appear happy and satisfy, we laugh without joy and cry without tears. I think we do not have to adjust life because the fault lies in reality. One of the reasons, I believe, why Solomon uses such vivid illustrations is in order to break through our defensive attempts to avoid reality. The reality is cruelty. It is full of sorrows, pains, hurts and tears.

Life "under the sun," he has told us, can be boring, fleeting, repetitive, and empty. Life will never be meaningful "under the sun" until we make contact with the One who is above the sun. Those who try to find meaning without linking their lives to the Creator inevitably see life as an "interminable soap opera."

My dear friends, pause for a moment and honestly ask ourselves: " Are you tired of your life?" " Is there any emptiness deep down in your heart that you will never be satisfied with all that you can possess in this fleeting world?" I thought the song " In The End" by Linkin Park is relevant to my above thoughts. And the song goes like this:

........ all I know time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down till the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It's so unreal

When I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall, to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter

In the end what really matter is that we know and fear our Creator by keeping His commandments because this applies to all man. And that was how Solomon ended the book of Ecclesiastes 12:13-14.

Let's wean ourselves off any ideas that we can have real life 'under the sun.' May it be granted to us that we will gripped the truth, that life, real life, is never found in the creation but rather the Creator.