Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Contentment Now | The Writings | Ecclesiastes 6

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

"Once I get ____, I'll be happy." How do you fill in that blank? Do you spend more time grateful for what you have or wishing you had more? In today's episode, Jensen shares how Ecclesiastes 6 wakes us up to the transience of our lives, urging us to find our contentment in God, the only One who can truly satisfy. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ecclesiastes 6

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. For the past six years, my husband has been working towards becoming a physician. We spent four years in medical school, and now we're going into our third year of his residency, and we're finally getting closer to him becoming a full-fledged doctor. And once the training wheels come off, we also know that our lives could drastically change. We've sacrificed a lot of things. over the last six years and we often find ourselves dreaming of what's going to change one day.

See, our hope to have a house with a second toilet is usually at the top of our list. You see, when things have felt hard or tight, we often find ourselves saying, just wait, things will get better. Life will be easier. We'll be happier when you aren't a resident anymore. But recently, through Wise Counsel and the sermons at our church, we've been realizing that instead of living a content life where God has placed us, we've actually just put a lot of hope in this good life that we've envisioned for ourselves when residency is finally over. See, we've fallen into a trap that so many of us often do. We think that we are in control. And we think that when we work hard enough to get the next thing, then we'll be satisfied. But who knows what's going to

happen in the next year? I mean, people die. Jobs are lost. Economies crash. Housing markets go crazy. And even if none of that happens, I should know by now, from my own experience, that even when I get the next thing, it's never enough. See, the teacher of Ecclesiastes hits home on this point in chapter six. After talking about the vanity, the Hevel, the transient nature of wealth and honor, he continues in chapter six by saying this. There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind. A man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires. Yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity. It is a grievous evil. So there's

this evil that happens in life, an evil that plagues all men. Even when a man lacks nothing, He still may not be able to enjoy what he has. He may lose it. It may be taken from him. A vapor, vanity, smoke. Here today, gone tomorrow. He goes on to explain, even if it isn't taken from him,

he still may never truly find satisfaction in all that he has. Starting back in verse three. If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things. and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it is not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he.

Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good, do not all go to the one place? So the teacher is saying here that a man who is infinitely blessed, the peak of blessed, blessing in that time was children in a long life, and this man has hundreds of children and lives many years. Even he can find himself unsatisfied with good things. And he makes the bitter point that a stillborn child is better off than this man. It's better to have never faced the darkness of this world than to have had all the goodness at your fingertips and failed to enjoy it, failed to live contentedly. He ends his comparison with a question. Don't all eventually. die? Don't all humans face the same end? If we have no control, if we can work and still lose it all,

if we can have everything and still suffer, still never find satisfaction, then what good is it to live? We're better off dead. Now, it's a dark sentiment. But the teacher, he's shocking us. Remember, he's yelling, wake up. Don't forget about Havel, the transient nature of life. It is temporary, fleeting, the harder we try to grasp onto the smoke around us, the quicker, it disappears. Vanity, vanity. Verse 7 gives us a clear image of what the teacher is getting at. He says all the toil of man is for his mouth. Yet his appetite is not satisfied.

See, he brings us all back to the very base of our humanity. We all need to eat. We all work to eat. And after we eat, after we think we satisfy that desire, that hunger, well, give it an hour or two, and guess what, you're hungry again. Our appetite is never satisfied. We always need more. We always want more. Even the best meal of your life, the greatest food you've ever had, it didn't satisfy you for long. He goes on, for what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living?

better is the sight of the eyes than the wondering of the appetite. This also is vanity and is striving after the wind. See, poor or rich, it is all the same for us. None of us are any different at the end of the day we all have an insatiable appetite. Better to see what's right before you than to live based on your desires, your longings that can never be fully satisfied. That is vanity, striving after the wind trying to catch something you can never catch. Can you hear what the teacher is getting at?

This life, the good life that we all want, the desires we have, the things we want, the things that we think will heal us, satisfy, as make us happy, will never be enough. It is never enough. We could live a thousand years. Be blessed with hundreds of children, a big house, a second toilet, a third car, a pool, a closet full of name brand clothing, a corner office. But if we are looking for our satisfaction in those things, we will always need more. we will never feel full. See, if we have a horizontal view of life, if we take God out of the

equation, then all seems utterly hopeless. All we have is Havel, fleeting, vapor. No matter what we have, the wealth, the success, the honor, no matter what we strive after, we will never be fully satisfied. Always hungry again and again until we die. See, he finishes out the chapter. with two questions. Questions that will transition us into the next section of the book, but he asks, for who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow. For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun? Who knows what is good for man? Who can tell him what will come after this life? It's kind of a cliffhanger ending. Does anyone know? Because at this point, things seem bleak. The teacher leaves us with the

reality that at the end of the day we are all human, all destined for the same end. Is it even worth facing the struggle, the disappointment, dissatisfaction of life? I think we're meant to sit here with these questions, to feel the weight of life on a horizontal plane. Vanity, fleeting, vapor, you can spend your life trying, striving for more and you will stay discontent, running the rat race, always hungry, again and again. See, the teacher wants us to feel the desperation, the emptiness, the hopelessness of life without God. He wants us to get smacked in the face with reality to wake up to stop trying to satisfy our appetites with things that will never satisfy. Look up. See the vertical nature of your life.

Stop trying to find satisfaction in the horizontal. It will not satisfy. See, when you see the transient, the fleeting nature of life next to the stable, enduring nature of the only true and holy God, there's no comparison. When we sit in the hopelessness, we're smacked in the face with the reality of life so that we will happily, willingly run humbly and without abandon to our king and creator. A life lived for horizontal gain is destined for dissatisfaction. No, look up. See your king. See your life is more than just what is before you. You are a part of a larger story. Your life has a bigger purpose. No, you don't have control over what will happen. Yes, you will never be fully satisfied by the things of this world. You will always need more food in this life. And yes, one day you will die. But let the reality of your need, your weakness, your mortality throw you into the arms of Jesus. He is your strength. He is your goodness. He is your king and provider. He knows what is good for you. He created you. He knows what's coming. He's made a place for you in his eternal kingdom. You are secure. Despite the fragile nature of life, the fleeting, vapor, transience of life, your king is in

control, and he has made a sure and steady way for you. Cling to him. Look to him, strive after him. Live your life to build something eternal. Show the world around you what the goodness of God looks like. Bring his peace into your neighborhoods, his love, into the hallways you walk, his justice into this hurting and broken world. We don't withdraw from our horizontal lives. We don't run from what's before us. No, we stand firm and we bring the kingdom of God, a kingdom of love, justice, and peace into every interaction that we have. We know that everywhere we go, Our security is in King Jesus. Look up.

Remember the bigger story your life is a part of. Because when you do, you can walk through the uncertainty, walk through the unknown, the vapor with contentment. Because you are satisfied in Jesus. You have all you will ever need in Him.