Everything That's On My Mind

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It seems appropriate that my first real post on this blog is music-related. Switchfoot's latest CD "Nothing is Sound" has been stuck in my CD player recently. In my mind, it's an interesting musical exploration of the book of Ecclesiastes, which at one time was my favorite book of the Bible. Full disclosure: I was not in a positive state of mind spiritually at that point in my life. Nevertheless, the truths found in Ecclesiastes are vital for us to understand as Christians...but like all biblical truth must be placed in the context of all scripture. Otherwise, we are likely to despair.

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." Ecclesiastes 1:2 (NIV)

Yikes! Can I get some Prozac, please? Everything is meaningless? So what's the point? Not to pull a Bill Clinton, but the question is...what does the Teacher mean by "everything"? I believe the Teacher is referring to the things that this world system considers real, important, and valuable. Things like wealth, position, power, happiness, education, etc. All these things are meaningless because the world that we see is not the point, the spiritual world is the point. I'm not espousing some sort of Gnostic spirit/body duality. I'm just saying that the spiritual world has priority, the physical world is simply the tool God uses to mold our spirits into the image of Christ.

This is what Christ means when He says "store up for yourselves treasures in heaven". He's saying the treasures of this world are meaningless, the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven are what's important. And so, the struggles, trials, and pains of this world are meaningless except for the fact that they are refining us as Peter writes: