Now I know what you may be thinking… That’s not fun. Those players surely wish they’d be gearing up for a playoff run to the World Series. Well, of course! Obviously winning a championship at the end of the season is every player’s ultimate goal. But that doesn’t happen every year for every team/player. It’s just not realistic. So just put that thought aside, and step back into the scenario. I’m making the assumption that most professional baseball players first started playing baseball because they just loved the game. Faced with a “meaningless” game, as I’m imagining in this case, I’d like to guess that many of them would mentally put themselves back into childhood mode—when there was no pressure, no stress and no criticism as they played baseball. Instead, fun and joy prevailed. 

I imagined this situation while reading and studying Ecclesiastes recently. Reading through the first several chapters, you’ll easily notice one word that gets repeated over and over and over—MEANINGLESS. The writer is very emphatically making the case that everything is meaningless. Earthly wisdom, pleasures, work, advancement, achievement, riches… Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless. It’s like chasing the wind, Ecclesiastes says. 

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. -Ecclesiastes 1:14

Why? How so? Well, the book says that everybody faces the same destiny anyway—death. 

 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. -Ecclesiastes 9:3a

No matter what you’ve accomplished in life, your time on earth is limited, and it will eventually come to an end. An earlier Old Testament verse puts it this way: 

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. -Genesis 3:19

Obviously, as believers, when we die, we enter into God’s eternal kingdom. But if you just think about your earthly life, then pretty much everything you do (apart from winning souls for Christ) ultimately carries no great weight in the grand scheme of things. As Ecclesiastes 1 essentially says, humans come and go, and planet earth just keeps doing business as usual. The sun rises and sets every day, the wind continues blowing and streams keep flowing into the sea. 

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. … What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. -Ecclesiastes 1:4, 9

So what are we to do with this? Should we just sit around moping all day every day? Should we give up even trying to be good people and trying to do good things? Here we sit, facing the same decision that those baseball players were making. Facing an utterly meaningless game, should they be lethargic and annoyed? Or should they play with lightheartedness and joy? 

Ecclesiastes is quite clear about how we should live in light of the realization that everything is meaningless. It encourages us to seize the day, enjoy life and live with joy and gusto! The Message translation says of Ecclesiastes 9:7b, “God takes pleasure in your pleasure.” God wants and allows us to enjoy ourselves! Here are a couple of the verses (with my own emphasis added) that share this sentiment: 

A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? -Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? -Ecclesiastes 3:22

This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot. Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God. They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart. -Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. -Ecclesiastes 9:7-10

Do you see a theme? The author of Ecclesiastes, who most scholars believe was Solomon, is advising us to really embrace life with joy and gladness of heart. Enjoy it, he says! Remembering that we’re all headed toward death one day, make use of the days you have and be happy. It’s especially interesting that Solomon offers this advice (repeatedly) because by the time he wrote this, he’d acquired quite the impressive amount of material wealth. So as a man who had status (he was the king!) and every material possession he could ever want (and much, much more), as he reflected on his life, his culminating words of wisdom were this: Everything is meaningless, so enjoy what God gives you. 

Now don’t take this too far and use it as an excuse to slack at work… Or to let your home exist in a state of filth and dirt… Or to treat relationships with carelessness… Or whatever… But do take a deep breath every once in a while, de-stress, and remind yourself that if you’re trying your best and living with gladness of heart, then you’re doing something right. Enjoy life! What a fun directive from Scripture, right? 🙂