It's All Meaningless! (Ecclesiastes)

Kevin and Zane talk about the wisdom found in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, Clear Path friends. Today I'm hanging out here with my dear father. Hello, Dad. Hello, hello. Uh, we are gonna be talking about the book of Ecclesiastes. Today, we are on the next to last chapter of Ecclesiastes. I'm gonna go ahead and admit that I have jumped forward and finished the book. And uh yeah, just we hadn't really had a chance even sitting here yet to discuss the book much, but we just wanted to um kind of start at the beginning and see what we feel like God was showing us as we read this thing. So I'm gonna read to you guys from Ecclesiastes 1, starting in verse 2. This is kind of his opening of the book. Some uh would say that this was written by King Solomon, and some would argue that this was written by uh maybe someone else in David's line or a different king. But uh one way or another, this is this is how he starts off with his discussion of wisdom. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. There's a few words already in there that he likes a lot. Vanity. He's pretty fond of that word. He also, I don't have a clue how many times in this book he says something about under the sun.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Everything under the sun or all the toil under the sun. But I suppose that that what he's his kind of starting thesis here in the book is that kind of like, hey, we're all gonna die, and before very long, no one's gonna remember you. And so don't get caught up in things here that aren't gonna last. You know, it all it's all not as worth your time as people make it out to be. That's kind of what he's saying to start off.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

It's uh interesting to me that I'm reminded of the proverb that you know says, don't argue with a fool. And then it the next verse says, make sure you put the fool in his place. You know, and yeah, so he does kind of bounce all through here. Um, he talks about the fact that nothing's gonna give you the lasting pleasure that you think it's going to. Um that he says, I've I've tried them all.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Um it's very funny too when he talks about trying them all. I don't remember exactly how he says it, but he says essentially what he says is, I did this as a science experiment. Yes, don't think I was out of control. I knew exactly what I was doing whenever I tried all of the foolishness of the world. I just did it to see if it worked or not. And I've kept my spreadsheet and I have found out that it doesn't. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

All the party and all the women, all the the wine, uh all the uh laughter, the the silliness, the I've I've tried all these things and they don't bring lasting pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

And he talks about the wisdom too, because he's like, I've also found all wisdom, and I've found that a wise person ends up no better than a fool. Yeah, you still end up in the ground. He's a very upbeat kind of guy.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

You know, I've many times when I read it, I I'm struck by the fact that I think these same things. You know, I'm I have uh come to the realization of late that your mother asked me a couple of months ago, are you the oldest person at Clear Path? And I said, Yes, I am. Uh barely in some cases, but uh or at least people that regularly attend. But I I only said that to say that I don't think I had realized that, but yeah, I guess you probably are. As as I continue to get older and realize what a small percentage of my life is left to me, uh what a percentage of I've used up that I've tried to look back and gauge what I've accomplished and gauged where my efforts should be moving forward in the time that I have remaining. Uh it's it's rather sobering, but I generally come to the to the realization it's okay. I I need to I need to focus on what I think are the things that matter, what I think will bring me enjoyment, and what reap the real benefits to myself, to the people that I love, to the people that I can impact, and to what God thinks about where I'm spending my time and what I'm doing. Um so I try to to check in with him regularly, uh, as I think everybody knows I'm retired, and so I have some time and I get to pick more than most people of how I'm going to use that. So sure. Um I I a lot of the things he talks about in here, uh, I I never was a huge partier, but uh I have seen the the uh the lack of completeness that I feel when I finish some things. Sure. Uh and and the things that are going to have lasting value.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Um yeah, there there can be real emptiness too to uh I don't think I'm the only one that's had this this conclusion, but there have been things before where I set out some big goal that I wanted to accomplish in life, and maybe I work a long time to get there and I complete it and I feel really proud of myself. But then I think there's a really natural rebound that happens there where all of a sudden you go, it all of a sudden you can end up really unhappy, maybe the next day, because you go, Oh, I finished the thing that I've been set out to accomplish. And how is am I any happier than I was before I completed this goal?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

And so then you can kind of have this feeling like he talks about where you realize, oh, maybe that was meaningless, you know, or maybe, I mean, and it may not always be meaningless, but you get what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

He talks about, you know, hard work and accomplishing things and the reward that that gives and then what brings. And and they they do have those things. And many times what I've found it, it, you know, the old saying, it's it's not about where you end up, it's the the the trip to get there. And uh, I'm reminded of the the period in my life when uh we were working really hard to at least I was, I'm not sure that Shandra was as invested in it as I was, but I wanted to pay off the house. And that I was really focused on it and throwing money at that. And uh and one day I came home with a piece of paper in my hand and asked Shandra and Toby to step outside and and we were gonna have a a quote mortgage burning ceremony. And I told them this paper shows that we don't owe anybody on our house anymore. And I lit the the lighter to the paper and it started burning, and I dropped it in the little fire table and it went out. And Toby was uh whatever, a teenager, and he said, he looked at me and said, Can I go back in now? And I said, sure. Not quite the epic moment you had imagined Sandra went back in too. And I and I thought oh, but uh, but what I really learned from that, it really was about the journey and and that that hard work and accomplishing things because my next thought was, okay, well, what else can I start working on? Sure, which you know that is sometimes what you have to ask yourself. That it is a reward. And I I'm pretty big at, you know, if I finish painting the wall, I want to step back and look at it and admire it a little bit and see how good it looks, and maybe bring somebody else over to see how good it looks, but then it's on time to do the next thing. So it is life is is just a series of those things. Uh, but we get to pick what those things are.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah, and I think he's talking about here some of the things we have to realize that they're not overly meaningful, but it is better to enjoy them than not to enjoy them, right? He goes on this rant of why you should enjoy eating and drinking and enjoying your wife and whatever all the list of things he makes.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

And uh, you know, a few years ago, I was just spending some time praying alone, and I ended up doing this exercise. I just made it up, but I ended up doing this exercise that I'm not necessarily suggesting anyone else does, but I started thinking about all the things I spent time doing in my life. And I was wondering how much of my life I was wasting, if you will, versus how much of it I was using how I wanted to use it. And so I started writing down every single item that I could think of that I spent any time on, whether it was TV or uh I don't know, blowing my nose. No, I mean I didn't get quite that granular, but you know, whatever work and whatever hobby, et cetera. And so then what I had to do was go right next to it if it was meaningful or if it brought joy into my life. And if it did neither, then I was no longer allowed to spend time on it at all. Yep. I just had to cut it. So it was a good exercise. And so I'm curious from, I mean, maybe I'm now uh, you know, becoming an old man, but I'm curious from from someone who's a little later in life. We can talk about the meaningful piece in a second, but with the joyful piece, I think that sometimes it is true that it's underestimated to just enjoy your life. Do you have any comment at this point in life of what it's worth to just be, you know, do things that are enjoyable?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

It it it is it is worth doing. And besides worth doing, it is worth marking. You know, uh anybody that knows Chandra and I know that we go to Mexico a lot. And I still remember years ago that uh Chandra and I are in a jacuzzi tub on our porch on a beachfront unit at the Royal Haciendas, and the moon is full and it's shining through the the uh archway on around our little patio there outside. And we were both commenting how nice it was out there, and Chandra says, We need to mark this moment. We need to take the time to mark this moment that we are enjoying this time together, just the two of us, and and it's beautiful, and and the the view is beautiful. We're so happy here, the two of us right now together enjoying this time that we need to mark this. And we did, and I've I've thought back to that many times. So I do think it's valuable to to have those moments. Uh, most of those with me have always come from family. Uh grandkids are a huge source of that in my life. And uh family in general is just a huge source, and I'm sure that some of that is age, but uh just enjoying my time with those people that I care about so much.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Um I mean, and just you know, certainly I've had the same experience with family and friends. Even if it's like, I don't even know if the moment has to be as special sometimes as it has to be to say, I really like being with you. Yep, you know, and expressing to the person that you're with that you enjoy that and that you as you both expressed that, that's quite a heartwarming feeling. You know, I remember when Levi was younger. Uh, I don't know if this is, I don't know if I've heard him say this in a little while. He's almost 13, but but not long ago, he had kind of a pattern where when we would be doing something fun together as a family, or maybe I, I don't know, take him to Waffle House or whatever the thing is. He would say, he would say, I really I'm really enjoying myself right now. Are you enjoying yourself? And Tiffany and I would always just like crack up laughing because he started that that pretty young, you know. He'd be five, and he would say that exact sentence, I'm really enjoying myself. Are you enjoying yourself? We'd be playing dominoes or something, you know. And uh I was always suddenly enjoying myself more than however much I was the moment before he said that.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Right. Well, I think it's it is really important to call, as you were talking about a little earlier, the the time that is wasted because I think I'm not a lone ranger here when I say that I can be on my phone for two hours and sitting in my chair at home. And when I finish that two hours, have a very empty feeling of I just wasted those two hours. That didn't really bring me any enjoyment. There wasn't anything I learned that I needed to know. Um, you know, there every once in a while there's something on there that I felt like was worthwhile or that I'll report to Chandra, by the way, this happened in the world. But in many occasions, I'm just thinking, no, I sat here and wasted two hours. I could have been doing X, Y, and Z that had some value attached to it, but I chose not to.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Sure. And you let and you weren't really enjoying yourself.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Correct. You're not like, man, I just had a great time. Correct. You know, I I'd have been better off laying back in my chair and closing my eyes. I'd have felt better about the time, and I'd have sure felt better. Um well, I I thought about it, I ran up to get uh pizza last night, and something wasn't ready when I got there. I'd left my phone at home, so I went back out in there. They told me it was gonna be like 10 minutes. So I went out and sat in my truck and went, oh, I guess I get to sit out here and talk to the Lord for 10 minutes. I don't have a phone that I can scroll on to quote, waste my time, so I can spend some good time. And I did. And uh was glad that that my phone had gotten left at home because it made me think about what am I gonna do with this time now? Well, I'll just talk to the Lord for a little while.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, one of my one of my most common favorite moments in my whole life is just going on a walk and leaving my phone at home. It can be so the amount the amount of good that happens in my heart and my mind as I go on a walk with no phone is always awesome. And another favorite thing that I have is uh airplane flights. I'm not that I don't sometimes get in a conversation with someone on a flight or something like that, but also sometimes if I just have a few hours and I just get to turn on some background music and pray and sleep and think, I'm just like, oh my gosh, that was the best. You know, no one can call you. So I really enjoy times like that. So just so we don't get too long on this on this podcast, I think that generally the reason that I notice him calling things vanity or meaningless is how temporal they are. He he always talks about something and then he talks about how it's temporal and how it's gonna pass away, and how even our lives are temporal and pass away, and one day you're gonna be laying on the ground just like the next guy, right? And so he doesn't actually make this statement in the book, but the thing that it always leads me to think about is just by just by understanding why he's saying that, I'm like, okay, well, then that means in in contrast, things that are eternal must be valuable if things are invaluable because they're temporal. Right. So then I always start to think about what is eternal, right? And of course, that's my relationship with God. And I I also get to think about uh, you know, investment in God's kingdom and some some ways doing ministry obviously can have eternal fruit. And just people we can think about as eternal. I don't think that everyone gets, you know, inherits eternal life, but I think everyone who finds Christ inherits eternal life. So when I'm thinking about people, I'm thinking about them as, you know, the the opportunity for eternal goodness. And so, yeah, I don't know. That's just the contrast that happens in my mind while I read this book is if everything is useless because it's temporal, then what can I think of that's not temporal?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yep. Um, even think even things that we think of that are good and valuable and worth our time and our investment. Um in most ways, many and most of those are still going to be temporal. Um we we might be remembered by our grandchildren, you know, in some ways. I know you still think about my parents that are gone and and how much they invested in your life, but you know, they're already gone by Levi and Luke time.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah, of course. And I I mean, I met my let's see, I guess I met my great-great-grandma and knew her for some years while I was really young, which is rare. Not many people can say that. Right. But I mean, I was little, it's not like I mean, I have a couple little snippets of a memory, but but if you start asking me, giving me a quiz about my great-great-grandparents and what I know about their life, I've heard a story here and there, and I don't have those stories cataloged very well. I don't know much at all.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Sure. Um, and I've got things that my parents are gone that I think, man, I would like to ask them, you know, about something, and and it's gone. Nobody that knows, you know, those those things I might wonder about is is around for me to ask. But it it again shows that even those things are temporal and that uh the the value of those is going to pass. Now, I do think that there's a heritage that gets passed down. Uh, I do think that when we set a pattern, when we show a way, when we do things the proper way, and that our children do that and their their children follow in that, and we hope that that is perpetuated down through some generations, that that people are trying to do the right thing, that they're trying to treat people right, that they're trying to be the right kind of person, and that they're trying to please their God and our God, and that that we have instilled that and that that that keeps going. So that time that I spend with family, I hope that it it causes the people that are to come in my line that are never going to remember who I was, that some of those things will be perpetuated down through that that lineage because I did the right things.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

I agree. That's true. And I and not that we I don't know, I wouldn't say that we earn earn blessings from the Lord, but that as God bestows blessings on his on his kids who follow him closely, which he says that he does, and he says that he'll pass that down to many generations. Yeah. And so there is some, you know, in a way we are living for a future on earth that will not be our own. But it's uh, and then we just connect that to the eternal, I think, you know, that when we actually start to think about life now as being the beginning of eternal life, yeah, instead of life now as being disconnected from eternal life, right? Then we're just at the beginning of a long, long, long line instead of uh instead of you know halfway through or more uh a a short line. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Uh uh while I'm while I am uh most probably at least three quarters of the way through this this segment, that uh I am not scratching the surface on on the eternal that I've already started. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

So well he he kind of there's sort of a nice bow tied at the end of this book, which is a little unexpected in a way, because the whole book, like you said, just kind of goes in all this, you know, circular kind of pattern of thinking, it's all Of vanity, but actually, it's kind of great you should enjoy it, but actually it's worthless and there's no point, but might as well enjoy it anyway. And he just kind of keeps you know doing the same thing in different ways. Chapter 12 is a little different, and it ends with this the end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. And man, I do think that the things that you do in life, you know, they you get found out. Even on earth, you get found out in most cases. And I I think eternally that that's certainly true. But there's this idea here of fearing God. And I heard a preacher one time, it was one of the famous preachers, I don't remember who it was. It was one of the famous preachers who had gotten, I think, put in prison because he had some big TV ministry and was following the Lord, but then got into doing some kind of fraud or whatever it was. And somebody asked him, When did you fall out of love with Jesus? And he was like, Oh, I didn't. And they were bothered by that. And he said, and he said, I just never learned to fear God. And I do think that there's a lot of wisdom, you know, the the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Yep. Right? Yep. It's like there is something to knowing that God is God and that we need to please him and we need to keep his commandments and that that we are going to be held accountable for whatever we choose to do.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

I like the term healthy fear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

So, well, whoever's listening, we're going kind of long here, so I'm going to close out in prayer, but but we hope that you don't get caught up in the things of the world that don't actually matter. We hope that you will enjoy your life while you have a chance. We also hope that you'll take God seriously and that you'll follow all his commandments and and that you'll pass down on a pass down a great lineage to your kids and grandkids and so on. Amen. Lord, thank you that you give us wisdom that we can learn from. Help us to follow you with our whole hearts and to be fully committed to your ways. God, that we wouldn't just have a list of rules that we try to follow by any means, but but that we would get to know your heart and that we would be led by your spirit, and that our desire would be to think like you think and walk in the ways that you have set out before us, to do all those good works that you've planned in advance for us to do so that we can fulfill the faith and the love that you have planted in our hearts.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

So, God give us wisdom in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

See you later, guys. Yep, see y'all later. Dad, thanks for coming and talking with me. See ya, Zane.