Why am I here? Most individuals spend the majority of their lives seeking purpose and meaning. Often, one finds a momentary sense of fulfillment in some accomplishments, but the feeling fades. Once again, the quest begins for something more substantial, more purposeful, with a more extended sense of meaning and action. Thus, the cycle continues throughout life to the top of the mountain and then back into the valley, looking up at the peaks to find that one that will fill the hole in our very being that we can not seem to plug for any prolonged length of time altogether.
If a good student of the Scriptures looks across multiple translations of Ecclesiastes 3:11’s second sentence, they will discover an oddity. The verse will read one of two ways: “Also He has put eternity in their hearts…” or “Also He has put the world in their hearts…” This is perplexing to the Biblical student as the two are opposites. The world and its base nature stand at the other end of the spectrum from the eternal things, the heavenly things. As we have discussed in past articles and on the Cogitations radio program when you see a divergence across translations such as this is a big sign that you should go back and check the original language. Doing that, one discovers that the Hebrew is neither eternity nor world but rather a hole. So properly understood, God has placed a spot in our hearts that leaves us with this longing to fill it…to fill it with meaning and purpose. And just like translators, we can fill that hole with the world or eternity.
Unfortunately, we consume too much time struggling to fill it with worldly things. The best job that makes us happy and grants us a feeling of success, a great house in the perfect neighborhood, the car of our dreams; building a successful non-profit; and the list can go on forever as we try to fill that hole with something with lasting satisfaction. But in the end, it is all meaningless; it is vanity. This is the whole point of Solomon’s thesis on life titled Ecclesiastes. He lays bare from the very beginning to the conclusion of his research into finding fulfillment in a worldly solution to filling the hole in our hearts. “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) What he is proclaiming is simply that every worldly pursuit in and of itself is vanity, is meaningless, is without purpose.
Turn now to the end of Ecclesiastes after Solomon has shared every worldly pursuit he has chased to find meaning and purpose in life. It is in the second to last sentence of his thesis that he reveals the conclusion of all his research. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13) Thus, Solomon’s final analysis regarding the pursuit of meaning and purpose is simply put…God. We are to have a deep reverence of Him because He literally holds our eternal fate in His hands and the fear that any reasonable person would have when understanding that reality should motivate one to obey the will of God. In the following verse, Solomon informs us that there is no way around it, no way to hide from it. “For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
God’s desire for what we should desire and fill our lives with has always remained constant since the day He fashioned the first man from the dust of the earth. Micah expresses it well in Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” It is interesting to note that this is framed as a question as if to ask in most likely a rhetorical fashion; “Has God not shown you what is good, what He requires…to be just, merciful, and to walk in submission to His will? If one would fully and completely and truly submit to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, I believe that in no time at all, they will find that God has filled that hole in their heart with the greatest purpose of all and with a sense of meaning that overflows from their heart to fill the hearts of others. And as the days continue to march ever onward through their life towards eternity, they will find that meaning and purpose will not diminish or lose its luster.
(Carl Hartman is the Minister at Main Street Church of Christ in Lockney)
