Have you ever asked yourself, “Why did God permit me to wake up this morning? Why is my heart still beating? Why am I here? What is the purpose of my existence?”
If you haven’t asked that, you need to, because there is a reason why God has permitted you & me to be here. I believe it is important for us to know the answer to that question because if we don’t, there can be all kinds of negative results. And in the O.T. book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon talks about negative results that arise when we have no purpose.

Now King Solomon, if anyone, should have known the answer. I mean, Solomon had it all. He had money – more than he could ever spend. He had possessions – more than he could ever enjoy. He had wives – more than he could ever please. He even had wisdom far greater than any one else in his day. He had it all. Yet for a while, at least, he didn’t have a real grasp on the purpose of life.

LIFE WITHOUT A PURPOSE
The 1st chapter of Ecclesiastes, has some of the negative results that come from not knowing the purpose of life.

  1. First of all, when you don’t know the purpose of life, then life will seem empty. In vs. 2 Solomon writes, “‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’… ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’” Have you ever felt that way? Without some guiding purpose, life doesn’t make much sense at all!
  2. Secondly, when you don’t know the purpose of life, then life can be an endless cycle of futility. In vs’s 4, 5, & 6 Solomon says such things as, “Generations come & generations go… The sun rises & the sun sets, & hurries back to where it rises,” & “The wind blows to the south & turns to the north; round & round it goes…”. So life becomes like a merry-go-round – going round & round, yet never getting anywhere. And Solomon gives this result in vs. 8, “All things are wearisome, more than one can say.” In other words, “It’s wearing me out.”
  3. Thirdly, when you don’t know the purpose of life, you’ll never be really satisfied. Notice the last part of vs. 8, “The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.” We always want more. We have gone from 10″ black & white picture tubes to giant flat screens, & hi-fidelity, stereo?phonic, surround sound. But we’re still not content. From a Toyota corolla to a Subaru to a VW Polo or Passat to a Mercedes Benz and we are still not satisfied. Put a 250-channel remote control in our hands & we’ll still be restless. Because the things of life don’t really satisfy unless you have a purpose for living.
  4. Fourthly, when you don’t know its purpose, life itself will seem insignificant. Listen to vs. 11, “There is no remembrance of men of old, & even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.”  “If you ever start to feel proud, just remember that soon after your body has been lowered into the grave, your family & friends will be eating chicken strips with salad & telling jokes, & you’ll be history.”

Wow, that’s depressing, isn’t it? Yet, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the lives that Solomon describes as empty, meaningless, futile, insignificant, & out of control. Solomon wrote this book near the end of his life after he had tried everything and achieved much, only to find that nothing apart from God made him happy. He wanted we the readers, to avoid these same senseless pursuits. Before we even get into how to discover your purpose we need to understand that if we try to find meaning in our accomplishments rather than in God, we will NEVER be satisfied and everything we pursue will be meaningless…

I ask the question again, What is it that you do?

…..to be cont’d……. (next week we shall be looking at how can we discover our purpose)

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