“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Ecclesiastes 1:2–3 (NLT)
When you read today’s verse, it seems pretty depressing. Yet the book of Ecclesiastes has a profound purpose that we need to grasp.
We all know we can learn from experience. But experience is not the best teacher. How many of us wish we could go back and redo parts of our lives, knowing what we know now? The best teacher is Holy Spirit. He can bring things to our attention ahead of time.
With that in mind, today I want to dive into the wisdom we can find in God’s Word about setting priorities. All throughout Ecclesiastes, the writer (commonly believed to be King Solomon) is trying to show us how meaningless it is to pursue pleasure, prosperity or position. These are all great things—and of course God wants to bless you—but it’s a mistake to set anything other than Him as our top priority.
Don’t waste your life thinking that anything else will satisfy you. There’s not a person alive who will fulfill the love you need at a heart level. There’s no task or position that can meet that need. People pursue these things at the cost of their relationships and health, then at the end of their lives they wonder, “What in the world have I done?”
Take it from the wisest man who ever lived besides Jesus: Solomon. He was incredibly wealthy and skilled, yet he didn’t find happiness in those things. (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, NLT)
Today, re-evaluate your priorities. Everything is futile outside of God’s love, so make the decision to pursue Him first!