The One Thing Solomon Couldn’t Find Under the Sun

Ecclesiastes 2:11 – “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.”

In verse 3 of the same chapter, Solomon decided that he would pursue pleasure “till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.” And he did. He spent his time and his enormous wealth and power to buy stuff, drink wine, build houses, grow massive herds of cattle and sheep, grow vineyards, build parks with beautifully manicured gardens with pools and fountains. He collected gold, silver and the ‘treasures of kings. He hired the best singers and had a thousand of the most beautiful women in the world to be his wives.

Wow! I’d say he gave it his best shot—literally. And amazingly, Solomon’s own honest evaluation of that huge experiment is found in verse 11 above. He says all was vanity or futile and ‘a striving after wind’.

What’s crazy is that even after Solomon went through all of this for us, we refuse to believe him and feel the need to pursue pleasure ourselves. We think that if only Solomon had our modern entertainment opportunities he would have found lasting enjoyment and a happy life. Does that statement sound as foolish to you as you read it as it did to me as I wrote it?

The problem is that pleasure is a product of this world i.e. “under the sun” as Solomon calls it. And we were created by God to be spiritual beings, made for eternity. Because pleasure is of and for this world, it can never last. It is momentary and fleeting at best, and all of us have experienced that over and over again in our lives. Yet we keep grabbing for it, hoping that this next time it will stay with us. But it never does. Pleasure is simply a momentary fix and when it’s over at best it’s not satisfying and at worst we are consumed in guilt and in a more painful situation than when we started.

Let me say it again, pleasure, because it is of this world, can never last more than the moment and cannot be satisfying to our eternal nature. Only the Joy that comes from God is lasting.

Like Solomon, when our focus is on ourselves, the best we can reach is worldly pleasure which is neither lasting nor satisfying. To escape this trap, we need to set our focus on the One who created us for eternal things, and seek the joy that is found only in Him and His Holy Son Jesus Christ.

If we lift up our eyes to Jesus and let Him direct our lives, we will discover, like Nehemiah, that “The joy of the Lord is my strength!” Nehemiah 8:10

Ask Jesus to give you His Joy.