Life under the sun

“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 1:14
First up, let me admit that Ecclesiastes is not my favourite book of the Bible. Sometimes we can wonder why it was included in the Scriptures. But if we are willing to read it, we can understand some important points about how unbelievers view life.
Here we come across a phrase that is repeated over and over through the book of Ecclesiastes: ‘under the sun’. Solomon writes concerning life here on earth, during the days that we are walking around in our physical bodies. He writes as if this is all there is, and discusses all the pursuits that a person could engage in – education, pleasure, work, money, etc. For each one he concludes that it is meaningless, because for every example of someone who worked hard, there is an example of someone who didn’t work at all and was better off in life. If this is the meaning of life, then what we do doesn’t really matter, because it seems that everything is down to fate.
But this phrase ‘under the sun’ is what separates believers from unbelievers. For the unbeliever, who is not aware of God or of eternity, this life is all they are focusing on. If this life is all that there is, then it is indeed pointless and meaningless, and we are each a random collection of molecules drifting randomly through random events. From this worldview, unbelievers can’t understand why Christians would deny themselves pleasure and don’t try to get ahead of everyone else. Paul wrote, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Cor. 15:19).
But as believers, we know that life does not end when we die. In reality, these 70 or 80 years that we might spend on planet Earth are less than a blink in eternity. That’s where we are headed, and this life is simply preparation for it. Our lives are not meaningless, because we are living for eternity. Let us all remember that when we go through seasons of doubt and discouragement about the meaning of life.