What are your plans for the future? When our children were young, we asked them one night at the dinner table, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” In high school, college, and in job interviews, we can be asked, “What are your career goals?”
Beginning in verses 1-2, Solomon begins to give us a picture he calls “a very serious evil which I have seen everywhere”. He then goes on to describe two different situations. The first situation is a man of extreme wealth and honor; Solomon describes this as a gift from God. The problem is that God does not give the man good health, so he dies early, and others get it all. Solomon describes this as “absurd, a hollow mockery, and a serious flaw”. We must understand this as Solomon looking at the situation from a purely human perspective.
The second scenario is a man who has 100 sons and 100 daughters and lives a very long life “but leaves so little money at his death that his children can’t even give him a decent burial – I (Solomon) say that he would be better off born dead.” Solomon ends this paragraph with this summary: “Though a man lives a thousand years twice over but doesn’t find contentment – well, what’s the use?” (Verses 3-6).
Skipping verses 7-9, we find Solomon giving us a very human response to life. “All things are decided by fate; it was known long ago what each man would be. So, there’s no use arguing with God about your destiny.” (Today people might say, “the universe” instead of God.) “The more words you speak, the less they mean, so why bother to speak at all? In these days of our empty lifetimes, who can say how one’s days can best be spent? Who can know what will prove best for the future after he is gone? For who knows the future?” (Verses 10-12).
These words express the outlook of all who either do not believe God exists or does not care. “In these days of empty lifetimes” are the expressions of how Solomon felt because he could find no purpose in life and that caused him to wander from God. This emptiness and the guilt we feel may be what causes many people to leave the church. They hear no teaching about how to deal with their guilt nor about their purpose as Christians.