Is it against God to see life as vanity?

A_Thinker said:

As I have lived through my youth and middle years ... and now face the last 20 or so of my years left, I find that only thing that makes my continued existence worth living ... is LOVE.

We are here to LOVE ... and to RECEIVE LOVE from one another.

Our lives can help others to experience giving and receiving LOVE, ... and so, help ourselves and others to become more and more the children of the loving Father ...

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100% agreement. Jesus said so.

AlexDTX said:

Solomon does not say that life is vanity, but all is vanity, and he refers to the world system, sin and death. Life is good and glorious because God is life. I am in sympathy with your point of view, though. I have spent many years understanding the conspiracy of the aristocracy to destroy freedom and set up and one world government. They want the population reduced so they feed us GMO's filled with Round-UP and fill the skies with chemtrails of aluminum. They dumb us down through government school indoctrination, and steal from us blindly through inflation, income taxes and unending wars.

This made me very angry and discouraged. But this anger has only come because of focusing too much on the evil that surrounds us instead refocusing on the good that is everywhere. Life does not suck. Sin, death and evil suck. The creation is good, but is marred with sin and death. Nonetheless, the animals multiply, plants grow, rain falls and the created world is filled with magnificent beauty from the sunsets, plants and even down to the molecular level. The creation is good.

And even if the entire creation was evil, which it is not, God is greater than all of His creation and He is purely good, right, just and perfect in his kindness, love and generosity. The English word, "God," is a truncation of the word, "good." Our ancestors understood the goodness of God.

Feeling this way is not sin. One third of the psalms are called Deprecatory Psalms because the psalmists are complaining about the evil around them, their success, and their pursuit of the psalmists to trap them. No, it is not sin, for God knows the evil. Take heart. Remember the goodness of the Lord and all of the creation, and know that this present evil will pass.

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We can't really use the English word God being similar to God as a justification that God is good. Many languages with completely different wording existed long before English.

CrystalDragon said:

We can't really use the English word God being similar to God as a justification that God is good. Many languages with completely different wording existed long before English.

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I think you misunderstood my point. Different cultures looked at different attributes of God depending on their preference. Allah and Eloah have the same root of Oak Tree and represent the Strength and Power of God, hence calling him the Almighty. The English word "God" is the word "good" and in our culture this is something we recognize.

By the way. What a petty comment. The woman is struggling and my response is intended to encourage her in the goodness of Life, since God is Life. Why not give her an encouraging word, too, instead of nit picking on this?

grasping the after wind said:

I find nothing in Ecclesiastes that abrogates anything in the Bible. The Preacher lays out how vain our temporary existence can be. He is not blaming God for that vanity. He is merely pointing out humanity's folly in what we consider valuable. The equation he lays out is Human ideas about what is important, or meaningful or necessary =vanity. His advice is to obey God and to enjoy whatever portion God has given you in this life rather than attempting to find meaning in the meaningless or importance in the trivial. His complaints are not aimed at God but at humanity and humanity's false ideas about what matters in life.

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So that is now how most commentators read Ecclesiates.

grasping the after wind said:

I find nothing in Ecclesiastes that abrogates anything in the Bible. The Preacher lays out how vain our temporary existence can be. He is not blaming God for that vanity. He is merely pointing out humanity's folly in what we consider valuable. The equation he lays out is Human ideas about what is important, or meaningful or necessary =vanity. His advice is to obey God and to enjoy whatever portion God has given you in this life rather than attempting to find meaning in the meaningless or importance in the trivial. His complaints are not aimed at God but at humanity and humanity's false ideas about what matters in life.

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So that is now how most commentators read Ecclesiates.

12I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven. It is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with. 14I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. 15What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted.

16I said to myself, “Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.” 17And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind. 18Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain

Solomon is going out of his way to describe his observations about wisdom not every man's. They are in direct opposition to his own writings in proverbs.

I have no problem with him doubting God. Just as I have no problem with Psalm 10:1-15, or 44:9ff, or Habbakuk 1:1-4. God allows complaints and is transparent about people's limits to understands His administration.

But why insert a false premise. Why not recognize that God allows people to express a wide range of emotions including doubt and anger with God and at one moment to praise wisdom and at another in their lives to say pursuit of wisdom brings pain not joy? Why create a false premise?

Halbhh said:

I enjoy Ecclesiastes very much also, and one good medicine (unexpected) can be to read the book of Job but not in an anticipating or thinking way -- not thinking to know already, but to read like one might a novel, just for its own sake, as a story. But to read it as if real. As if it could have really happened just exactly that way even.

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And @mukk_in

Can you elaborate on why you believe reading Job would be helpful in this case? Is it the "look at someone who is doing worse than you to feel better about yourself" notion?

RaymondG said:

And @mukk_in

Can you elaborate on why you believe reading Job would be helpful in this case? Is it the "look at someone who is doing worse than you to feel better about yourself" notion?

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It can have that effect, but more, if one really gets into reading it, without holding it away at arms length with thinking about interpretations, etc., then you can get more of what it offers, and that's a lot. Not only does Job lose really everything that is considered a good in this world, but even worse than many other losses is that Job gets judged by his friends, his spouse abandons him after telling him to just curse God and die. And more.

But I think most of these afflictions and losses will happen to all of us, over time. Not so much all at once, except at times it can indeed seem like a lot at once. Job is realistic to our real experiences in life in that way.

But that's not all, you will get more, if you read in natural way, open to hear.

Angeleyes7715 said:

...
Sometimes I also feel like our condition that God left us in is much worse than losing your only son. We are stuck on an evil planet for years doing meaningless labor and work only to lose our loved ones and die and have everything go to nothingness. Not only that he promises us something we cant see....

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But you can find out. You can "seek" Him with "all of your heart", and He said: "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart."

When a person is trying to do as He said, trying to do what is right, and then they really do seek with "all" of their heart, then He says they will find Him. I tried, and it works.

I love your threads because I feel we think the same.

Halbhh said:

But you can find out. You can "seek" Him with "all of your heart", and He said: "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart."
When a person is trying to do as He said, trying to do what is right, and then they really do seek with "all" of their heart, then He says they will find Him. I tried, and it works.

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How did u seek him?

Angeleyes7715 said:

I can't accept the explaination for death. I also don't accept being a martyr or leading people to Christ / giving up everything for other people as justification for being stuck on this evil planet with a miserable life only to die and be promised something I can't see.

Is this wrong to feel this way?

One my favorite books is Ecclesiastes and the author basically says what I'm saying. This whole life is meaningless and vain.

Sometimes I also feel like our condition that God left us in is much worse than losing your only son. We are stuck on an evil planet for years doing meaningless labor and work only to lose our loved ones and die and have everything go to nothingness. Not only that he promises us something we cant see. And we live in fear for years just waiting for our time. And then if we don't do what God says we burn for all eternity.

I'm a Christian. I am no stranger to the teachings. I even have the Holy Spirit infilling, but yet I feel so unhappy about this life God gave us that I find it hard to live.

Can feeling this way be a sin?

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Honestly I'm more concerned with what happens in the afterlife than in this life. Hell is still something I can't wrap my head around. Nothing in this world can match the agony of Hell.

And as far as I know, you probably haven't seen God. Yet you still believe in Him. Faith is believing without seeing.

Also God didn't lose his only son, He's up in heaven right now. Jesus was tortured and died for all our sins, so that we may live with God in Heaven.

Far Side Of the Moon said:

How did u seek him?

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Well, I had been, in my head (but not fully in my heart I can see in retrospect) thinking for a while as a teenager that I did not believe in God. (Yet....I prayed to Him once or twice even in those years, I remember. So that shows us something about the head vs the heart.) Later, I figured out that there is no way to be sure God doesn't exist, so I was agnostic then for a while, and then later I took a sort of step towards God as I started to believe some in the idea of a 'universal consciousness' or the 'all things are one', which is also called I found out later the 'perennial philosophy'. But even in those days I felt pulled at times to find out more about what Christ said, because the words were coming back to mind I had read at age 11, so very intriguing, and I was older and had begun to get at least some of the profound nature of this -- "Love your neighbor as yourself." and "Love your enemies" Did He really say that!? --Why? What did Jesus mean by "love your enemies"?? Why would He say that? In time I began to see Him as a great philosopher. I was into Joseph Campbell at that time in my 20s, so that I didn't think that myths had to be wrong, but instead were to be a repository of wisdom. I had been reading widely, stuff like Emerson, Lao Tzu, etc., and what happened is I began to see how Christ's words were like the intersection set of the various wisdom traditions, and my respect for Him went up even higher.

But I still did not believe in my head.

But I did begin to wonder, more.

Could it be?

Might He be....real? Emotional. It was also powerful on an emotional level. Because of words like these: "A new command I give you, that you love one another". "I tell you [to forgive] not seven times, but seventy times seven." I started to wonder, since I'd been reading about plenty of history, such as northern Ireland for instance, if that was the only way to peace (that lasts).

The idea of the 'universal consciousness', from which we come, and to which we return, that idea had some hold on me. You see, in some ways, it's true. It's just very incomplete.

So it took a while. But one day, working outside, I was finally to this point -- I prayed, with true sincerity from my heart "God....make a way from me to you.... ....Bring me to you." and I really meant it. It was real "seek me with all of your heart". So, I can't remember just how long it was after that prayer, hours, days? But I slid backwards off of a 2nd story roof above large rocks. Total desperation. I knew this was certain serious injury or death, and it was unavoidable. I prayed, spontaneous, for real, "Help!" and I knew Who I was calling to, that He could do it. I didn't know for an instant if He would save me, but at that moment I knew simply that He could if He chose. Then I felt He would. I knew it in my heart. No atheist in a foxhole, that moment. On some level I just...surrendered. I knew I could not stop the slide, and I could even tell I wouldn't be able to grab the rain gutter. I just knew it, and I just surrendered utterly to rely on Him. My thought was "Save me" (I know you can). Something happened that's never happened before or since -- it was as if I blacked out, in mid air, just lost consciousness. I've even fallen a few times from 8+ feet (once from 18 feet, I've been up ladders more than 10,000 times), and never lost consciousness -- just the opposite, a super-charged adrenaline time-slowing consciousness, the opposite of blacking out. I woke up sitting about 6 feet down on a balcony porch railing, my feet suspended over the air, perfectly balanced. Maybe that's 1 in 100 odds.....if not with a prayer and losing consciousness for the only time in my life.....No bruises. How do you fall 5-6 feet onto a 1" metal rail and have zero pain or bruising (just a superficial cut (top layer of skin only; which reveals a white sheathing underneath!) on my arm from the rain gutter)....? Every other time I've fallen there was impact pain. But not this time. A 24-foot ladder then banged down against that railing right beside me. Now, this did not by itself close the case, but suddenly I knew I had been wrong in several ways about how life works. I told a friend "Life doesn't work the way we think it does." Now I was on the track, and now I began seeking Him more totally, because I knew now that God is real, even though I did not yet have confidence say in churches, I did have confidence now in God, Whom I knew is far above mere description and mere control. I began to read more in the gospels, wondering how much had been conveyed truly, accurately. And of course I began to realize it was more and more until finally I realized after seeing that 12 or 14 things I could understand were all entirely real truth -- they work better than any other way of any kind anyone has thought of -- that 12 or 14 in a row was very suggestive. That all of it was true. All. That fall and rescue was back in 2002, and all of my prayers that I know the result of have every one been answered, and that's very convincing. Sometimes frightening. I was often somewhat frightened by having prayers answered. But I was praying as Christ said to, because I only trusted the gospels, alone, at that time, and never considered any other way of praying (of any kind) to have any surety. Just the way He said to, alone. So, later, after one of my feet had pain for about a year and a half, and I prayed for it to be healed, just one prayer at night, and the pain was gone when I woke up the next morning (and it's been more than 2 years now without returning....), see all of these answered prayers add up. So I know God is real. To total certainty, now (which is frightening in yet another way occasionally when I reflect on this, but now I have almost no fear of anything). And I fear Him, because He really can do anything, and all those sharp warnings in the Bible are not just maybes.

It's all real. All of it.

/nvm

I read Ecclesiastes very different from you. It is very liberating. His message to me is that after trying out everything in life He has come to the conclusion not to waste time worrying about life, we all die, enjoy it, work hard when it is time to work. That the only thing not meaningless is the Lord God Almighty. Praise Him.

Also, I think you forgot that the Lord hasn't just promised us Heaven. He has promised us life in abundance. We can be filled with His Peace and Joy through the worst of times. I hope you feel better soon. Hugs.

/nvm

/nvm

Halbhh said:

We are still mortal, will suffer, all, every person, both righteous and unrighteous, and will die.

But.....the unrighteous will suffer extra calamities, extra losses, of what they imagine were good things, lost. In time. Before the end of this life. Bitterness even in this life. Bitterness.

While those relying truly on Christ, truly believing, and thus obeying His commands -- will find rest and comfort and blessings. Comfort and joy, even as their bodies begin to fail.

Both groups will suffer though; we are in mortal bodies, under the domain of nature. Suffering from that alone -- that's a given.

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I don't think the verses I mentioned means exactly the opposite of it.

It is very clear what those verses said, the righteous would suffer more in this world.

Perhaps, you do not know who the righteous are in this world. I am definitely not one of them but I hope someday I would take the courage to be one.

timewerx said:

I don't think the verses I mentioned means exactly the opposite of it.

It is very clear what those verses said, the righteous would suffer more in this world.

Perhaps, you do not know who the righteous are in this world. I am definitely not one of them but I hope someday I would take the courage to be one.

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Right. Those following Christ and telling the reality of Him will indeed suffer often, and sometimes persecution, and for some execution -- His warning of the hate they would often receive from the world for his name's sake, which was fulfilled, and will continue to be.

RaymondG said:

And @mukk_in

Can you elaborate on why you believe reading Job would be helpful in this case? Is it the "look at someone who is doing worse than you to feel better about yourself" notion?

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I'm not sure what your statement means brother, but when I lost my beloved uncle a few years ago, I was consoled by reading the book of Job, because Job lost all his loved ones too. He was blessed with many of them after his travail. I hope to see my dead uncle in heaven. Hope that helps .

timewerx said:

It's very confusing but we find this a lot in the Bible and also just by looking at the lives of disciples.

So how did the popular belief these days that being a Christian, you'll have a good life came about? It seems contradictory to the Bible.

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Not sure. But we do know that those who want to live a godly life will be persecuted. However, we also know that He has overcome this world .