"I thought to myself, "Now I want to experiment with pleasure and enjoy myself." But ever this was pointless. I thought, "laughter doesn't make any sense. What does pleasure accomplish?"
I explored ways to make myself feel better by drinking wine. I also explored ways to do some foolish things. during all that time, wisdom continued to control my mind. I was able to determine whether this was good for mortals to do during their brief lives under heaven.
I accomplished some great things:
I built houses for myself.
I planted vinyards for myself.
I made gardens and parks for myself.
I planted every kind of fruit tree in them.
I made pools to water the forest of growing trees.
I bought male and female slaves.
In addition, slaves were born in my household.
I owned more heards and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me.
I also gathered silver and gold for myself.
I gathered the treasures of kings and provinces.
I provided myself with male and female singers
and pleasure men have with one concumbine after another.
So I grew richer than anyone in Jerusalem before me. Yet, my wisdom remined with me. If something appealed to me, I did it. I allowed myself to have any pleasure I wanted, since I found pleasure in my work. This was my reward for all my hard work.
But when I turned to look at all that I had accomplished and all the hard work I had put into it, I saw that it was all pointless. It was like, trying to catch the wind. I gained nothing from any of my accomplishments under the sun."
Wow is that a depressing passage? You can see he is evaluating his life and there is not one word about his God (at this point.) That is what life must be like to those who do not know that the best is yet to come in eternity! I can bear these life's struggles knowing that there is a great and glorious future awaiting me.
Keep up with this study, I know he eventually tell us how how God alone gives contentment!
No comments:
Post a Comment