Wrestling with the Meaning of Life Ecclesiastes 1:1-11;12:13-14
French Philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) said, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator made known through Jesus Christ." But how many times do we find ourselves trying to plug that hole with something that isn't shaped like God?
We all have responsibilities. The dog has to be walked. The electric bill has to be paid. The bedtime routine has to be accomplished. And after days and weeks and years of the same thing, we find ourselves feeling enslaved to the cycle of life. Our culture will tell us that the way to find true meaning is to abandon that cycle: Leave the family! Abandon the dog! Find yourself! But true meaning in life doesn’t come through abandoning those responsibilities; it comes in realizing that we can connect with God inside and even through that cycle. Without connecting with God, the cycle is monotonous and enslaving. But when we begin to connect with God, we start to see opportunity and meaning even in the small things.
My wife left on a trip today with our two youngest children. They are traveling about seven hours to her parents' home to visit with her sister, who is visiting from Japan. Don't laugh, but this was hard for me. We always take trips like that together. I have traveled many times alone with my career, driving and flying alone. But I have never watched Becky leave for a trip without me. Everything in our home reminds me of her. Everything there reflects her touch. For some reason I am acutely aware of it when she is gone. But everything still bears her mark when she is present. A basket of laundry, neatly folded and ready to be put away. An empty basket beside that one. The extra blanket she always uses on her side of the bed at night, neatly folded on the foot of the bed, which itself is made up neatly. Our kitchen table with chairs arranged around it. Even the empty space in the driveway where her truck is normally parked. All these (and many more) insignificant things take on new meaning because they remind me of her.
What if we lived our lives seeing everything as a reflection of God's touch? What if we realized that every moment has the potential of being a holy moment because God is there in the ordinary? Can we cook a meal at home for love of God, or mow the lawn for His pleasure? Can we do all things as an act of worship to Him and look for His hand and listen for His voice? Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that certain moments of life are reserved for God and certain ones are not. Sundays are for God (at least 2 hours in the morning), and maybe Wednesday nights. The rest is my time, right? The question is not whether He’s there all the time and everywhere; the question is how cognizant we want to be of His presence. Of how much of the void within us that Pascal referred to we are willing to fill with Him.
We have the choice this week of living consciously in God’s presence, or we can just go about our tasks and responsibilities and never recognize His presence. If we never acknowledge His presence, then as the writer of Ecclesiastes said, there will be nothing new under the sun. Or we can choose to simply acknowledge the presence of God in our ordinary lives. That’s when the ordinary starts to become extraordinary.
BSFL Sunday School Commentary for the week of January 3, 2010
Wrestling with the Meaning of Life Ecclesiastes 1:1-11;12:13-14
We all have responsibilities. The dog has to be walked. The electric bill has to be paid. The bedtime routine has to be accomplished. And after days and weeks and years of the same thing, we find ourselves feeling enslaved to the cycle of life. Our culture will tell us that the way to find true meaning is to abandon that cycle: Leave the family! Abandon the dog! Find yourself! But true meaning in life doesn’t come through abandoning those responsibilities; it comes in realizing that we can connect with God inside and even through that cycle. Without connecting with God, the cycle is monotonous and enslaving. But when we begin to connect with God, we start to see opportunity and meaning even in the small things.
My wife left on a trip today with our two youngest children. They are traveling about seven hours to her parents' home to visit with her sister, who is visiting from Japan. Don't laugh, but this was hard for me. We always take trips like that together. I have traveled many times alone with my career, driving and flying alone. But I have never watched Becky leave for a trip without me. Everything in our home reminds me of her. Everything there reflects her touch. For some reason I am acutely aware of it when she is gone. But everything still bears her mark when she is present. A basket of laundry, neatly folded and ready to be put away. An empty basket beside that one. The extra blanket she always uses on her side of the bed at night, neatly folded on the foot of the bed, which itself is made up neatly. Our kitchen table with chairs arranged around it. Even the empty space in the driveway where her truck is normally parked. All these (and many more) insignificant things take on new meaning because they remind me of her.
What if we lived our lives seeing everything as a reflection of God's touch? What if we realized that every moment has the potential of being a holy moment because God is there in the ordinary? Can we cook a meal at home for love of God, or mow the lawn for His pleasure? Can we do all things as an act of worship to Him and look for His hand and listen for His voice? Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that certain moments of life are reserved for God and certain ones are not. Sundays are for God (at least 2 hours in the morning), and maybe Wednesday nights. The rest is my time, right? The question is not whether He’s there all the time and everywhere; the question is how cognizant we want to be of His presence. Of how much of the void within us that Pascal referred to we are willing to fill with Him.
We have the choice this week of living consciously in God’s presence, or we can just go about our tasks and responsibilities and never recognize His presence. If we never acknowledge His presence, then as the writer of Ecclesiastes said, there will be nothing new under the sun. Or we can choose to simply acknowledge the presence of God in our ordinary lives. That’s when the ordinary starts to become extraordinary.