Everything Is Never EnoughSample

DEEPER STILL

“Everything is absurd” does not mean that everything is worth­less. This is evident in Ecclesiastes’ series of seven affirmations about what is good, stated between Ecclesiastes chapter 2 all the way to chapter 11.

In these passages, Qohelet tells you how to view life it­self and all the daily joys that are yours for the receiving. One word does the job: “gift.” It is good to receive all of life as a gift—because it is a gift and is itself good—and to receive each day’s heaping handfuls of blessings as gifts. As far down as absurdity reaches, the gift runs deeper still.

As Qohelet tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:12-13, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.”

Qohelet says that enjoyment itself is “from the hand of God” (Ecclesiastes 2:24). He names each person’s share of work and pleasure their “lot” or “portion,” mindful that every lot is allotted, every portion ap­portioned by someone (see Ecclesiastes 5:18). As Qohelet says again and again, it is God who grants life, measures its span, and stuffs in goodies like mom and dad filling Christmas stockings.

How does Qohelet know this? Not the same way he discov­ered life’s absurdity. Not by empirical investigation. Not by in­ference from observation. Qohelet is telling us what he knows by faith. He is not investigating but confessing.

If you don’t believe in God, then “life is a gift” shriv­els into a mere metaphor. However grateful you may sometimes feel for life and all its most basic and abundant enjoyments, you have no one to thank.

That your life is a gift from God means that ultimate re­ality is not random or empty, not mute or malicious, but is personal, loving, and intends good. In God’s world, enjoyment is a clue to reality’s deepest, brightest secret: that the universe is the gleeful invention of an unassailably happy God.

God, when my mind wrestles with doubt and the weight of the world feels heavy, remind me that you are the giver of all good things. I receive this day as a gift. I receive my life as a gift. Thank you. Amen.