Scripture: Ecclesiastes 11:7-8
Light is sweet, there
and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.
However many years anyone may live,
let them enjoy them all.
But let them remember the days of darkness,
for there will be many.
Everything to come is meaningless.

Thought for the Day: Ecclesiastes is often referred to as the most pessimistic book in the Bible, but I actually think it’s one of the most powerfully hopeful (although this could be because of the ending added by an editor late in the book’s evolution). But when the author(s) says, “everything is meaningless,” what he’s talking about is human toil. Ecclesiastes is about the meaningless of life without God, about the dark days we will all go through in the century or so we live this physical existence.

Difficulties are impossible to avoid. Life is a series of ebbs and flows, hills and valleys. The task at hand, it seems to the author of Ecclesiastes, is to maintain a strong relationship with God, because that is the only thing that matters both in this life and beyond. The skyscrapers we build and the economies we create are fleeting. Eventually, even the Great Pyramid turns to dust. Human life and human creation only exists for a microsecond on the timeline of eternity. But God is the timeline of eternity and when we live deeply in that knowledge, when we live consciously in that relationship, then whether or not our structures survive is meaningless. Because we have found true meaning, we have found God.

Prayer: Show yourself, God who hides in plain sight! I see you in the trees, in the stars, in my neighbors, and in the guy sitting in the car in front of me who refuses to go even though the light turned green like, 45 minutes ago. Help me find true meaning in a transient existence, God who transcends all existence. Amen.