by Enoc Garcia, Washington Conference communication director
There is something unsettling about the book of Ecclesiastes. The preacher begins with the cheerful declaration, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” One generation comes and another goes. Rivers continue running into the sea, but the sea is never full. What has been will be again. Eventually, even the things and people we thought would never be forgotten begin to fade from memory. Life has a shelf life.
Solomon knew something about trying to escape that reality. He had wealth, accomplishments, power and access to seemingly anything his heart desired. He built houses, planted vineyards and pursued pleasure. In his own words, “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.” His philosophy seems remarkably modern: I will make myself happy. And yet, after getting everything, Solomon looked around and concluded that it was all “vanity and grasping for the wind.”
Then comes Ecclesiastes 3. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to laugh and a time to mourn, a time to gain and a time to lose. Some of those things we can control. Many we cannot. Add it all together and life can begin to feel like an equation whose answer is zero.
But then Solomon says something surprising: God “has made everything beautiful in its time” and “has put eternity in their hearts.” That is the tension of being human. We live between two worlds. We experience beauty and brokenness. Things feel perfect and terribly imperfect. We were created with eternity in our hearts while living in bodies and circumstances that are temporary.
So how do we live on this end of eternity? Solomon gives us a remarkably simple path: rejoice, do good and live with eternity in mind.
First, rejoice. Rejoicing is different from pursuing pleasure. Pleasure says, “If I can just get a little more, then I will be happy.” Rejoicing says, “I can be grateful for what God has already given me.” Many of us live believing happiness is waiting at the next destination. When I buy the house. When I get the degree. When I find the right person. When circumstances finally change. But what if joy is available now?
Second, do good. Our culture often celebrates getting goods. Scripture calls us to do good. What if our purpose is not simply to build a successful life but to be a blessing? What if our careers provide a living, but our deeper calling is encouraging people, lifting others up and making the world around us a little better?
Finally, live with eternity in mind. If our perspective is limited to a human lifespan, life can feel painfully short. Even 100 years is only 10 decades. But God made us with eternity in mind. Maybe that longing inside us for something permanent is there for a reason. Maybe our dissatisfaction with temporary things is not always a problem to solve. Perhaps it is a reminder that we were created for something they can never provide.
Paul writes, “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Life contains beginnings and endings, laughter and mourning, gaining and losing. But the sum of everything is not zero. We can rejoice, do good and live with eternity in mind.