Setting Priorities in a Broken World

Finding Satisfaction in a Broken World”
Ecclesiastes 4
“Two are Better than one because they have a good return for their labor.”
A popular preacher today has written a book, “Your Best Life Now.” In the book, he sets forth his principles for living a life of fulfillment, joy, and victory. The only thing holding you back is your attitude. All you have to do to find the best life is just believe it is possible and then embrace it. However, Solomon confronts us with a different reality. Because we live in a broken world, life does not consistently deliver what we desire. Instead of finding our “best life,” we find a life filled with troubles and challenges that are overwhelming. In a fallen world, we face the reality of oppression. There are individuals who gain power and use that power to oppress God’s people. Tragically, no one comes to their aid. Therefore, we come to the same conclusion as Jonah (Jonah 4:3) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:4), that a life of oppression is worse than death itself. This is especially true in our world, where people reject the values of God’s law and instead promote evil while attacking the righteous. In a world such as this, we might conclude, like Solomon, that life becomes meaningless and pointless since sin and oppression seem to be winning the day. When we face oppression, we can form a distorted view of life, and an amount of “positive thinking” can overthrow the power of the wicked.
 
The discouragement of oppression further weighs us down when we look at the futility of our work. Solomon confronts us with the vanity of our pursuit of wealth. In a materialistic culture, we become obsessed with keeping up our appearances. Life becomes all about having the latest and most popular brand of clothing and maintaining the right image. People buy Canadian Goose Jackets, Gucci, Patagonia, and others, not because they are necessarily better, but because they are the most popular. We spend all our time and effort to gain financial prosperity to keep up with our neighbors, but to what end?   All the material things that we long to attain today become fodder for the landfills tomorrow. Solomon confronts us with the folly of making possessions, wealth, and material things the object of our desires, for in the end, it never brings us satisfaction. Rather, it only brings us into an endless pursuit of that which we cannot attain (vs 8). We are always striving for more and are never satisfied with what we already have. In the end, it is the pursuit of that which is empty. The irony is that the more we seek to find satisfaction in life through material things, the more empty and unfulfilled we become. We never stop and ask your selves, “Why?”   Why do I want these things? Will they give me true happiness or just a false illusion? We desire to keep up with the Joneses by making sure that we have the same things as the Joneses, only to find that it does not satisfy. Thus, Solomon recommends that we seek balance in life. Verse 2, he reminds us that being content with what we have is better than striving for what we do not have.
 
For Solomon, meaning and security in life are not found in the pursuit of material possessions; they are found in personal relationships. Our wealth and possessions are a false substitute for what is really beneficial, and that is our relationships with people. The real security in life comes from the support of one another rather than the success of our bank account. When adversity comes, our great encouragement and hope come from our connection to others rather than the size of our financial portfolio (vs 9-12).

We are confronted with the question, “Where do we spend our time and energy?”  Do we spend it on developing relationships or on pursuing possessions? The first brings support and security in times of crisis, the latter only brings an empty promise.