On Meaninglessness

"Meaningless, Meaningless, says the Teacher, Everything is meaningless." Solomon says this a number of times throughout the book of Ecclesiates. But if we stop there, we can get depressed really, really easily. Read to the end of the book and see this: "Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commands." (not exact quote... this is off the top of my head).

That's it.

None of this grey area stuff. Simply fear God and keep His commands.

So why is it so hard?

Quite frankly it comes down to the thinking that we have to look after ourselves... that God cannot be trusted to take care of everything we need. So we stress out about making sure we get good grades so we can get a good job so we can make enough money to not have to live on the street and so we won't starve to death and we'll always have something to wear.

Do we really think God can't take care of that?

Stress comes from fear. The only reason we get stressed is because we care what other people think of us. What happens if we fail a course, even one that's required for graduation? We spend another year at school. Does that make us failures? NO!

Our worth is not made by our marks or our diploma or the job we get or how much money we have. God made us and loves us. We can be thankful that that will never change. So we can take risks and fail sometimes with the knowledge that no matter how often it happens, our value to God hasn't changed and He still loves us and will care for us. In the process, we probably learned something about ourselves, God, or the world, and we may even have enjoyed it.

To trust in God is irrational if you don't believe that God will take care of you. But if you believe that God is who the Bible says He is, it's equally irrational to think you have to do it yourself.

Therein lies the peace that goes beyond all understanding, because it's based on what seems like an irrational truth that we can rely on another to take care of our basic needs.

But knowing the truth that God created us, loves us, and has already given us everything He has... there's no reason we can't feel that peace.

Matthew 6:24-34... don't worry.