What Purpose Is Your Life? One With Worldly Striving Or Eternal Security? (Proverbs 31 – Ecclesiastes 6)
It can feel lonely in a world made up of so many people, all on their own path and journey through their lives. A series of questions often come up at some point: what purpose does my life have? What value do I offer the world? Do I have a reason for living?
While the Bible gives us guidance and some answers, some unknown questions can prove to be beneficial for our faith.
What Purpose Is Your Life? To what purpose are you living?
all is lost
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Everything is meaningless…
Everything is meaningless… the author of Ecclesiastes brings about a worldly wisdom history with a Godly wisdom present. He often identifies the core issue of what drives you while pointing us to God. Click To TweetWell how is that for a bit of a kick to the shin? The author of Ecclesiastes (most often thought to be Solomon although not 100% confirmed) brings about a worldly wisdom history with a Godly wisdom present. He often identifies the core issue of what drives you while pointing us to God.
On the outset, this may be immediate cause for sinking into a depressive state. But when looking over his words, we see a different picture come to light. He is presenting a viewpoint of the world in light of God’s ultimate sovereignty.
Do we need to know everything? No. Should we? The author points us to consider that leaving our unknowns in the hands of a sovereign God can serve to strengthen our faith and reverence of Him.
To what purpose are your pursuits…
What are you working for? What are you striving for? Often, our pursuits reveal our priorities which, in turn, often become our idols. Click To TweetWhat are you working for? What are you striving for? What purpose drives you?
Do you seek wealth? Is your goal to build up a massively successful business? Do you desire to have the most beautiful home? Are you in search of fame? What about a life filled with satisfying your desires? Making a name for yourself? What about the simplicity of personal happiness?
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
Ecclesiastes 1:3
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 2:11
What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.
Ecclesiastes 2:22-23
Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
Ecclesiastes 4:4
There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.
Ecclesiastes 1:11
For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!
Ecclesiastes 2:16
For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
Ecclesiastes 2:26
Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.
Ecclesiastes 4:7-8
Our pursuits often reveal our priorities which, in turn, often become our idols. Take some time to consider those questions, as the answers may guide your heart into a more righteous relationship than what you have now… should you approach it with a heart willing to listen.
Why this focus?
Ecclesiastes is one of the best books in the Bible to point us to evaluate our present lives and view them with an eternal perspective. We can get so wrapped up in our day-to-day lives that we lose the focus of what purpose we are here for. What you choose now will effect your future (eternity), but the point is that it is not something to put off. It is the here and now, your daily choices which you need to account for.
C.S. Lewis is a famed author, his writings often quoted by Biblical scholars. The Screwtape Letters is one book he wrote that captures this and highlights the dangers to an earthly mindset.
Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.
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There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.
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[God] wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. [God] wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour’s talents–or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall.
The Screwtape letters
In light of today…
He encourages us through his writing to understand eternity in light of today. What purpose you serve today often reveals your viewpoint on eternity.
For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.
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The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time–for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.
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Whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out…
The Screwtape letters
Does your current reality match your future? A serious answer is needed here… what is your current reality? There are only two places that all men are fated to go to; which one is in your future?
Who you are matters…
What purpose might you have in the world? Consider that who you are today matters. Your body is a vessel, intended to be fueled by God: “He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other.” This quote, and others from C.S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity, highlight what purpose our lives have.
The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self–all your wishes and precautions–to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.
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Give me all of you!!! I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half measures will do. I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out!
Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self—in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart.
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And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
Mere Christianity
Baby steps…
Does God want just a part of you seeking Him? Do you think that our sovereign Lord wills for you to sort of worship Him… like when it’s super convenient for you? He wants every part of us and we get to that point piece by piece, step by step.
In our lives, we all have had a barrage of opportunities to recognize and see the continual progress we have made in many different areas of life. Bit by bit, faith has been determined and founded; the persistence of one tiny step forward toward the goal is foundational in understanding the sovereignty of God.
The trust we place in God will be instrumentally established as a result of the journey we are walking.
Take everything one step at a time. You may falter, you may fall, but keep getting back up and strive to take that next step. And when you look back, you can see just how far you have traveled and grown.
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Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.
An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.
Mere Christianity
Failing to accept…
We best accept the reality of our situation in order to make wise choices.
The reality is: God is sovereign, we will not always have answers to our questions, and because both of those are true, we may never truly understand that the choices we make today can very well be a part of God’s plan to lead us. Who are we to walk away from that on a daily basis and deny Him the glory due for these daily blessings?
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.
Ecclesiastes 3:11-14
For His glory. Soli deo gloria. That we might give Him the glory in every area of our life. What purpose is better than that?
Better yet, take the time today(!) to analyze what purpose you are living for.
A motto that should hold fast to every area in our lives… why not grab a daily reminder to boast of Our King!
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Happy Thanksgiving!
I have an amazing talent for flipping God’s good gifts into idols.