- then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. -
Wait a minute! We’ve been lied to!
Solomon said all the way at the beginning of the book that he had seen everything under the sun and now he is just telling us it is impossible?!?
QUICK! If we all look together, maybe we can find where meaning is! Sure, it might have been too much for one man, but if enough of us work together, surely, we can discover it!
Hyperbole aside, who do I sound like? You might make an accurate remark and say something akin to a Wilsonian idealist.
You may even go so far as to make a sarcastic remark and claim I’m a politician or a huckster, but alas I repeat myself.
But I’m not asking that, nor am I really even thinking at that level. I’m looking to the Bible. Who do I sound like from there?
You may have your own answer to this question, a particular story or character that aligns with this I can do all things attitude, but there is definitely one story that I think stands out among the rest.
The Tower of Babel.
It is here at the Tower that the people determine that they will perform a feat worthy of God and reach the heavens. Strangely, God decides to confuse the people so that they cannot accomplish their task.
Okay, but what does that have to do with meaning or purpose in this life? That pursuit is not as hubristic an endeavor as trying to physically reach God’s home, right?
Well, think about it. What does it mean to give life meaning? It means to give it significance, something that lasts beyond our death and makes an actual difference.
How can a finite human ever hope to find that purpose let alone identify it? Our lives are too short, and we lack the eternal perspective to see the culminated consequences of our actions.
You can’t do it, and it doesn’t matter if you are the wisest man alive or spend all your time examining the lives of others.
The true answer to meaning will always allude you. It will always be a hair’s breadth away. A vapor on the wind and never something substantiated.
But, not answering that question will always leave something missing in your life, like a melody unresolved.
It is as if meaning exists regardless of whether you can fully articulate or explain it. It appears to exist despite us having no tangible way in which to observe it.
Yet, we can experience it! We can feel the world piece itself together where everything appears to fit, as if there is no place in our life that is out of sync with each other.
How can we hit a non-existent mark? How can we with practice get closer and closer to it and find it more regularly? What are we moving to?
Our verse makes the astute observation that we have been reinforcing throughout today’s post. Man cannot find meaning.
One may call that God’s work being done under the sun. Of course, there are higher levels of this meaning, but none that are visible or intelligible to us.
How can we know meaning then? How can we know the work of God?
By knowing Him.
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