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Part of my problem is that I don’t listen to myself, that I don’t remember and put into practice what I already know.

Scrawled in the upper corner of a seldom-used Bible is the following:

“The Christian life – a godly life – does not give meaning to the world’s system or pursuits. The Christian living a godly life has the privilege of participating in God’s system and pursuits. Ecclesiastes’ arguments show the truth of the first statement.”

I think those are my words: I almost always cite the source when I copy something I’ve read into a Bible. I could be wrong about this, but it sounds like something I would say. Too bad I haven’t lived that way.

As I continue to struggle – having been spiritually gut-shot and field-dressed – Koheleth’s book is like the morphine of a cauterized wound. I am comforted by his misery. His wisdom doesn’t validate my experience as much as it exposes my foolishness for having insidiously lived a vacuous existence. I am in remedial Christianity, a cram course for the spiritually challenged, having to study and apply things that were taught long ago but never learned. It is amazing that I could be so blind to so many cues and clues.

There were plenty of other warnings, too, some from unlikely places. The stupidity and emptiness of “the world” was described effectively in this song from the ’80s:

Standin’ in the middle of nowhere,
Wondering how to begin.
Lost between tomorrow and yesterday,
Between now and then.

“And now we’re back where we started,
Here we go round again.
Day after day I get up and I say,
I’d better do it again.” – Ray Davies, “Do It Again”

How many times I’ve listened to this song or had it stuck in my head is beyond my knowing, but certainly I was very familiar with it for more than two decades. It makes clear how ridiculous it is to expect the world’s system to be a source of meaning or gratification. The song continues:

Where are all the people going?
Round and round till we reach the end.
One day leading to another,
Get up, go out, do it again.

Then it’s back where you started,
Here we go round again.
Back where you started,
Come on, do it again.

And you think today is going to be better,
Change the world and do it again.
Give it all up and start all over,
You say you will but you don’t know when.

The days go by and you wish you were a different guy -
Different friends and a new set of clothes.
You make alterations and affect a new pose:
A new house, a new car, a new job, a new nose.
But it’s only superficial and it’s only skin deep,
Because the voices in your head keep shouting in your sleep:
Get back, get back –

Back where you started, here we go round again,
Back where you started; come on do it again.

Back where you started, here we go round again.
Day after day I get up and I say: do it again,
Do it again.
Day after day I get up and I say, come on do it again.”

I don’t think Ray Davies intended to preach a biblical sermon with his lyrics, but a biblical sermon he nevertheless preached. He captured the meaninglessness -vacuity? – of a life of going through the motions, doing things repeatedly without asking why, knowing that something was not right but afraid to change. David Burns struck a similar chord a fews years earlier with his own lyrics:

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…” - Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

Failing to make the most of my time, failing to examine my life to see if it was on the right track, failing to take responsibility for my life instead of simply letting life happen to me. The only thing I had to do to live a futile life was nothing: just keep doing what I was doing. I knew better but never did a thing about it. Looked in the mirror and walked away, failing to consider that the message might be for me.

I keep forgetting this; when I forget this, I lose my way. This is not the biblical or acceptable form of this message, however; the memory verse version is:

4 A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever.
5 Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there again.
6 Blowing toward the south, Then turning toward the north, The wind continues swirling along; And on its circular courses the wind returns.
7 All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again.
8 All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.” – Ecc 1.4-9

Things don’t change, says Koheleth. What is is what was; what is is what will be. There is a circularity about life that, inevitably, makes life vacuous if pursued for its own sake. One day follows another; every day is the same. The world’s system offered no hope yesterday, there is none today, there will be none tomorrow. The only – only – way there can be meaning is by living in accordance with God’s system and pursuing things of eternal value.

To expect the world to provide a sense of fulfillment or gratification is to ask more of the world than it can deliver – although it certainly holds out the promise. It is part of the lie, part of the deception: believing that a little bit of the world system mixed in with the purity of God’s design will make things even better. But like cancer in a healthy organism, it isn’t long that the good is destroyed and the bad is all that remains. It is like spiritual leaven, infiltrating and affecting every area of life.


2 Cor 1:13