Forever a Foreigner

Every so often, I slip into a melancholy mood.

Life seems a weary thing; the world noisy and discordant. My emotions stagnate. Joy and excitement are lost to a dull monotone of feeling. I try to pray. My spirit is cold.

That’s when I open up Ecclesiastes, and there I find solace. What is it about Ecclesiastes that touches this chord in me? This short book gives voice to how I sometimes feel in a way that nothing else does.

The honesty of Scripture is a beautiful thing. People who know God are unafraid to wrestle with life in this broken world. Job cries out in his suffering:

“I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
    I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
    let me know why you contend against me.
Does it seem good to you to oppress,
    to despise the work of your hands
    and favor the designs of the wicked?
Have you eyes of flesh?
    Do you see as man sees?
Are your days as the days of man,
    or your years as a man's years,
that you seek out my iniquity
    and search for my sin,
although you know that I am not guilty,
    and there is none to deliver out of your hand?
Your hands fashioned and made me,
    and now you have destroyed me altogether" (Job 10).

In the Psalms, David expresses his grief, his pain, his struggle with his enemies.

"O Lord, how many are my foes!
    Many are rising against me;
many are saying of my soul,
    'There is no salvation for him in God.'
Arise, O Lord!
    Save me, O my God!" 

"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
    and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?"

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
    and by night, but I find no rest."

As we read these words, we find expression for our own suffering, and there is comfort in knowing that this intense pain is common to the human experience in this fallen world. We realize also that God, in providing these passages in his Word, is himself aware of these thoughts and emotions, and he understands.

In Ecclesiastes, there is the expression of existential suffering. Solomon writes with brutal honesty how life sometimes feels under the sun, the transience, the meaninglessness, the unfairness, the pointless struggle of existence.

 "All things are full of weariness;
    a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
    nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done,
    and there is nothing new under the sun."

"What is crooked cannot be made straight,
    and what is lacking cannot be counted."

"I said of laughter, 'It is mad,' and of pleasure, 'What use is it?'"

"Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh."

"Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive."

I love this book of the Bible deeply. I have memorized the first chapter in its entirety, and I am working on the second.

It is a difficult book. I remember reading it early on and being baffled. I was trying to read it as doctrine, and as such it seemed almost unbiblical in its expressions. But as I studied it, I grew to appreciate it more and more. I had a Bible class on it in high school. Then while I was in college, my pastor taught an invaluable series on Ecclesiastes, that I highly recommend. (Greg Mazak’s Ecclesiastes series, Trinity Bible Church.)

Like Job and the Psalms, Ecclesiastes’ cyclical chapters keep bringing the reader back to God, although in a way that can seem almost hedonistic in its simplicity.

"There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" (2:24-25).

"The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (12:13).

But when I am world-weary, overwhelmed by bleak existential thoughts, this very simple message is one I find as a relief to my spirit.

My brother, a fellow appreciator of Ecclesiastes, said it well: “It’s a really encouraging reminder that God gives us exactly what we need to have a joyful life. We find peace in fulfilling our sole duty within all the temporary strivings–fearing God and keeping his commandments.”  

When I feel dead inside and weary of all things, I need this. I need to hear, “All feels like vanity and a chasing after wind. But God my Creator and Savior is real and in control. I need to fear God, and through him enjoy what he has given me to do in this life under the sun.”