Ecclesiastes: Time and Weariness

Ecclesiastes 1:5-8 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. In our passage today, Solomon focuses on the threefold pattern of the world, and our human experience matches this. 

• The sun chases its tail. It rises and goes down and returns, out of breath, to the place where it rises again. Anyone feel like the sun—you are just chasing your tail? 

• The wind goes to the south, then the north, and then back around again. Ever feel like life is a whirlwind? 

• The streams race to the sea, but the sea is never satisfied. The race we run never quite satisfies the soul, does it? 

“All things are full of weariness,” says Solomon. I heard one speaker describe this as the “same ole, same ole” disease. You get up every morning in the same ole bed next to your same ole husband or same ole wife, brush your same ole teeth, and put on the same ole clothes. You eat the same ole breakfast, get in the same ole car, go to the same ole job with the same ole people and do the same ole thing. Get back in the same ole car, drive back to the same ole house, eat the same ole dinner with the same ole kids and same ole spouse, get back in the same ole bed, and do the same ole thing all over again!  But, make no mistake about it, weariness is dangerous.  In C. S. Lewis’ book, The Screwtape Letters, a senior devil named Screwtape is teaching his junior devil nephew, Wormwood, strategy on how to turn people from God. Screwtape tells Wormwood that humans are always wanting something new and exciting. 

The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart—an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconsistency in friendship.

Be careful that the same ole, same ole doesn’t lead you down the wrong path.  Father, help us to be refreshed by an eternal, over-the-sun perspective as we live in our routine under the sun. Protect our hearts against new things and new paths that lead to dangerous dead ends. In Jesus’ name. Amen.