September 27, 2010 – Ecclesiastes 1

v. 13 made me think.  The task that we do, day in and day out.  The work that has been done, throughout the millennium, this is what God gave us to do.  Go back to Gen. 3:17-19.  Men were punished to toil without satisfaction in what was produced.  Here we see someone’s reflection on thousands of years of that.  When you think about what God was saying to Adam, He was telling them that in the Garden, the relationship they had with God was complete.  When that relationship was breached, a hole was made in man.  That hope can only be filled by God.  But man cannot unite themselves with God.  Remember that this comes before Christ.  So, what man does is attempt to fill their lives with worldly things in order to fill this hole they know they have but can’t seem to satisfy.  The writer realizes that nothing worldly can fill that hole.  And he doesn’t just mean material things, but worldly knowledge cannot fill it either. 

Fast forward 2300 years.  We see people are still trying to fill that hole that is there.  If you are blessed enough to understand that God is the only thing that fills that hole and that Jesus came to give us the ability to put God in the hole, then you are ahead of most.  Most the world still is looking for worldly things to fill that hole that has been there since Adam bit the apple.  While we read through this, think about how the world tries to fill our lives, every waking, and sometimes sleeping, moment with worldly things.  We must push back that tide and allow God to fill the hole that only He can.  All things are vanity, and that is the way it always will be.