Life

The wisest man who ever lived wrote a book about life. He began with the words, “Absolute futility. Everything is futile.” He went on to describe how meaning and fulfillment can not be found in wisdom, achievements, possessions, sex, work, or anything else on earth. In the last chapter, Solomon echoed the words: “Absolute futility. Everything is futile.” In a similar statement, Jordan Peterson (arguably the second wisest man who ever lived) said the chief characteristics of human life are finitude and suffering.

Anything we have, whether possessions, relationships, or health, will eventually be taken away and the pain of losing them will be greater for having once had them. Life is fragile and short. There is a cruelty to the seemingly arbitrary and meaningless way life screws us over on a regular basis. The repetitive daily grind is an exhausting and mundane battle and many people wear out or give up before it’s done. The rich and poor are both unhappy. The athlete will not be content in his trophies, the philosopher will not find the answer to his questions, and those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

We do not live life – we endure it. 

If we had anything resembling a happy childhood, this reality comes as a terrible shock. Many try to deny it, determined to continue their futile quest for happiness and fulfillment. We are born believing this is our purpose in life. We perpetuate the myth through the stories we tell ourselves, fairy tales of happily ever after. The reason we are so repeatedly disappointed, the reason we so often escape the pain of reality in addiction or distraction is this was never our purpose. We are like shovels perpetually frustrated by our inability to hammer nails. We’re chasing something we were not created for while abandoning our true purpose, and pain is the result.

C.S. Lewis said, “If you think of this world as a place simply intended for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place for training and correction and it's not so bad.”

When trying to live for our own happiness, the primary obstacle often turns out to be God, Himself. We expect Him to be a divine genie granting our wishes and making our journey a pleasant one. But instead of giving us what we ask, He is always foiling our plans and disappointing our expectations. In response, we question His goodness. If His purpose was to give us happiness and fulfillment on earth, He would truly be a very bad or incompetent god. But this is not His purpose and He does little to reduce the loss and pain that leads so many to nihilism.

This life was never intended to make us happy because this world is not our home. We were created for another world, and our time here is as travelers passing through. It would be a terrible thing if we ever found the security, comfort, and satisfaction we seek here if we were meant to find it elsewhere.

God has spared my life many times. I don’t know why and I’m not always glad He has, but I endure and run the race set before me, looking to Jesus. Not because He gives my life meaning and happiness, but because He is the way. I was created by Him and for Him and He purchased me with His blood. I belong to Him. I don’t get to do what I want with my life because it’s not my life anymore. Whatever it is and for however long it lasts, it’s His to do with as He pleases. There is no corner of my life over which I get to say, “Mine.”

At the end of Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes, “When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.” This does not conveniently dispose of the nihilism rampant throughout the rest of the book. It just says this is our job. 

Whether or not we find meaning, fulfillment, identity, purpose, and satisfaction on earth is not the point. We are not the protagonist of our own story, a hero’s journey in which God functions as a B-character to give us what we want. We exist and endure for Him. He is the protagonist, and we are little more than extras, playing a part in a play too big and glorious to understand. Our job is not necessarily to enjoy it, but to play the part deeply and truthfully for as long as we have the stage.

J.

Sept. 8, 2021