Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless.”
Ecclesiastes 1:2
Do you ask yourself why you continue to struggle to meet your daily needs?
Have you thought about how many times you are supposed to read the bible before it changes you?
Do you feel guilty when you pass a homeless person without even making eye contact?
Do you think God will say to you, “your knees are sufficiently worn, thanks, you’ve prayed enough”?
Are you tired of hearing what a terrible world we live in?
Do you wake up each morning asking God to reveal a plan for your life?
Do you wonder if there is more you must do to honour God?
Are you frustrated because your life is boring?
Are you tired and just want to yell at someone?
Do you think you are in a rut because you do the same things every day,
PRAY, EAT, READ, WORK and SLEEP?
Does life seem meaningless?
This summer, I took a tube ride on the Miramichi River and was willing to drift with the current. It was fun, but I found myself paddling frantically from time to time because the current would take me in a direction that I didn’t want to go. The more I had to paddle, the less satisfied I became of the tubing experience. Drifting may be a term that describes our relationship with life in general. We may feel successful in all we are doing but are not satisfied. It’s a feeling that makes life seem meaningless and fills us with emptiness. One of the most successful men in history, Solomon, found himself frustrated at the meaninglessness of his situation. He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, which suggests that we are just drifting with no purpose. Maybe you know that feeling.
In Isaiah, we read, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.” Drifting and frustration seem to be in our DNA. But we were not made to be without direction, without meaning, without comfort. We were made to belong to the One who made us. Solomon, after years of searching, concluded it’s all about having a personal relationship with the God that we ‘drift from’.
Life can be a series of disappointing views until we give our lives to the One who alone can give it eternal meaning. It is not easy to point our life in the right direction, and when we try to do so, we will get frustrated. There is nothing that we alone can do to stop the drifting. God sent Jesus to remove the guilt and the penalty of our sin and our wandering. By accepting Jesus in total faith, the God-relationship we were made for can finally begin, and we can find direction. Maybe we need to renew or establish that relationship today.
Please consider this prayer that I have borrowed from another writer as you seek:
“Jesus, you’re what I’ve been looking for. I’ve looked in all the wrong places, and at this cross, I bow before you, and I give myself to the man who loved me enough to die for me.”