Ecclesiastes 2

Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.
Ecclesiastes 2:10‭-‬11 NLT

Solomon is essentially saying that he enjoyed life. He had everything the world says we should want. He had servants, gardens, food, wine, resources, concubines, and wives. He denied himself no thing that we would deem pleasurable.

He even found pleasure in work, maybe even purpose in it (we’ll talk about work later). In other words, whatever he wanted, he had. Whatever he thought would make him happy, he had. No thing was off limits. Yet, in the end, he still had the same conclusion that he began with. It was all like chasing the wind.

It all brought momentary pleasure but no eternal value. It still left him wanting. So if pleasure didn’t bring a life purpose, he thought work might. Might it?

Desires from God

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
Psalms 37:4 NLT

Take delight in the Lord. Take pleasure in Him. Isn’t that a strange phrase? Find pleasure in God? I mean of course you should. He’s God. That shouldn’t be hard to do. Yet, we’re told to, and we have to understand it’s because we likely don’t delight in God that the psalmist says this.

Find pleasure into the Lord and He will give you your heart’s desires.
He won’t give you what you want or think you want necessarily. He will give you your heart’s desires. He will give you desires and the He will place those desires in your heart. Those desires will please Him because they are from Him.

Your desire may be for a new car. A heart’s desire from God may look like a car to serve for “Meals on Wheels.” Your desire may be a big house. A heart’s desire from God may be a home to provide shelter for someone for a season. Your desire may be millions of dollars but a desire from God may be to have enough money to meet the needs of a church or community not just your own needs or wants.

God will give you desires from Him. Those desires will be pure and will motivate you in a way to purely pursue them. You won’t have to be confused about whether or not it’s motivated by God because the desires will be from God Himself.

Study this Book – Ecclesiastes 2

These verses in chapter 2 are interesting to me:

Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.
Ecclesiastes 2:10‭-‬11 NLT

I think it’s easy to read it and say Solomon lived a spoiled life to find meaning. I tend to associate spoiled with the lack of hard work. And of course getting everything a person wants. And he said he did that. He didn’t deny himself and whatever he wanted he took.

But as you read you see that he also found pleasure in hard work. Perhaps he became a workaholic and “found” some type of reward in that.

These two ideas are contradictory of course. On one hand, there’s this lifestyle of spoiling oneself, and on the other hand he’s working hard. And honestly, I believe that is the point of all of this.

The point of this is that Solomon has tried to find meaning and value in life in everything. No matter where you fall on the life spectrum, Solomon has tried to find meaning there. Whether it was in doing nothing or doing everything, he tried it. And in the end, the only value he found in life was in God.

That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty.
Ecclesiastes 12:13 NLT