Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. … For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. – Ecclesiastes 1:2,2:21

What is the meaning of life? It is one of those cosmic questions that everyone asks at some point but, since it seems too big for us to get our heads around, we tend to quickly dismiss it and go on to the next meeting or mall or movie.

A man named Solomon asked this question near the end of his life. Solomon was the king of Israel at the height of Israel’s power. He was healthy, wealthy and wise. Yet, as he neared his life’s end Solomon realized that none of his power or success or wealth would last. In the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon wrote, “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. … For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it.”

If this life is all there is, none of it means anything in the end.

But, Jesus changes everything! Jesus promises that there is a life after this one, an eternal life in heaven. He guarantees we can have this life through faith in him because he paid for our sins on the cross and because he himself came back to life on Easter morning! This means that this world is NOT all there is. We are only going to live in this world for a few years compared to the eternity we are going to spend in the world to come.

So, we don’t need to get so uptight about how much money we don’t make. We don’t have to be constantly stressed over every little thing that doesn’t go our way. We don’t have to chase after every trend that comes down the media highway into our homes.

Live your life in the Lord Jesus and you will learn how meaningful your life is both in the here and now as well as in the heaven to come.