Everything is meaningless...

Wow, Justin's sermon last night was powerful. Ecclesiastes chapter 1 seems pretty depressing if you just read it at face value. BUT thanks be to God that it's only the stuff UNDER the sun that's meaningless!!!

2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

11 There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

The stuff in my life that I need to remember is meaningless without God:
-School
-Marriage
-Family
-my Car
-My appearance
-the "stuff" i have
-Shoes...clothes...stuff I fool myself into thinking will make me feel fulfilled
-How successful of a job I can find

...ahh! It's such a relief that chasing "bling" in this world is going to leave us empty and wanting more! Thank God we don't have to chase until we're broke and alone. We already have the answer to a fulfilling life and it's God and His word.
I'm so thankful that I'm HIS!!

Everyone should listen to Shane and Shane's song: "Under the Sun" from their Pages album. It is so incredibly powerful and it is talking about exactly this...and how we need to get OVER the sun!
Here are the lyrics, but listening to the song is really powerful:

Sitting around the fireplace
With a friend who’s been through it all
Soloman, wisest one
Tell me what you have found
Under the sun, under the sun
He answered

Get over the sun
Where life is hidden

Then he put on
A somber face
Talked about how
The rich man will waste
Away in the ground
Where the poor man is found
Painted up, like a clown
Under the sun, under the sun
He answers

Son you’ll soon be done
A life spent on some shiny god
Who leaves you empty