Reading the Bible isn’t always a cheerful exercise. Some of the psalms strike us as relentlessly gloomy. Parts of the prophetic books foretell great pain and destruction. But surely the book of the Bible most consistently labelled as “depressing” is Ecclesiastes. After all, doesn’t it teach that “everything is meaningless”?
Not exactly.
In their new book True Life: Practical Wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes, Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre explore the message of Ecclesiastes and what it means for us in both the pain and pleasure of our daily lives. True Life was written for women, with encouragements and illustrations geared toward that audience, but I’m sure men would be helped by it too.
True Life: Practical Wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes
Carolyn Mahaney; Nicole Mahaney Whitacre
True Life: Practical Wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes
Carolyn Mahaney; Nicole Mahaney Whitacre
Life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect. It is often out of our control and beyond our comprehension. Where do we turn in those times? The book of Ecclesiastes offers a guide for life—in the good and the bad.
In True Life: Practical Wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes, Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre lay out 14 lessons that can be learned from Ecclesiastes, helping women see what it looks like to fear God and obey him in the day-to-day. By examining the way life truly is, readers can find the wisdom to endure life’s hardships and enjoy life’s pleasures.
Book for Our (and All) Times
For an ancient book of wisdom, Ecclesiastes is remarkably relevant for our own times. (We shouldn’t be surprised though—sinful human nature doesn’t change.) We strive for control. We seek to eliminate all pain. We chase achievements and renown. Just as Solomon did, we try it all and find it wanting.
Across 14 chapters, Mahaney and Whitacre draw out what Ecclesiastes teaches us about life and how we should approach it. The news starts off bad: life is uncontrollable, wearisome, unhappy, and grievous (chap. 1–4). But it’s also enjoyable and well-timed, even while simultaneously incomprehensible (chap. 5–7). Knowing this, we should seek to live faithfully, industriously, carefully, wisely, joyfully, boldly, and fearfully (chap. 8–14).
The details of daily life may have changed drastically since Solomon’s day, but the path to wisdom hasn’t. Ecclesiastes is a book for our times—and all times.
Following Solomon’s pattern, Mahaney and Whitacre begin by helping us to feel the vanity of all we’re striving for under the sun. They don’t let us off the hook in these early chapters. Page by page, we’re forced to face the reality that we’ll never get our lives together, that the life milestone we’re desperately waiting for won’t satisfy us, and that “brief, baffling, and bad are normal conditions for life’s journey.” (25)
By exploring the vanity of wealth, work, and pleasure, Solomon isn’t trying to make us give up on ever being happy. He’s doing something intentional: stripping away our false ideas about life so we can know how to truly live.
Solomon is … stripping away our false ideas about life so we can know how to truly live.
Live Receptively
If all our earthly pursuits are vanity under the sun, how can we live well in the world God has made and the lives he’s called us to? One way, Mahaney and Whitacre suggest, is by living receptively.
Instead of striving to achieve more in a quest for the good life, we must realise where joy comes from—and it’s not from our own efforts. The authors write,
We cannot achieve enjoyment; we can only receive it from God’s hand … If we are chasing success, we might fail to enjoy the sweetness of family dinners or fellowship with friends over a good meal. (61)
In this fleeting life God has given you, cultivate the habit of joyfully receiving whatever your Heavenly Father gives. Your life isn’t waiting for you on the other side of a wedding, promotion, or painful circumstance. When we live receptively, our eyes are open to the good gifts of God right here, right now. And our joy is all the greater for knowing we don’t deserve good from God but receive it through the merit of Christ.
As we read in Ecclesiastes, “Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.” (Ecclesiastes 5:19)
Since reading this book, I’ve taken notice of that gift far more often. I often ask God to help me live receptively, to lay aside my desires for the day ahead and instead receive whatever he chooses to give me. When we live like this, our joy in a vase of fresh flowers is multiplied. But our joy in hurt feelings is multiplied too, because God has purposes for both.
Does Nothing Matter?
The exhortation from True Life to live receptively helps us find joy in our everyday lives. But we’re still left with the key question: Is it all meaningless? Are we merely trying to extract a little happiness from a dismal situation so we can get through the day?
Are we merely trying to extract a little happiness from a dismal situation so we can get through the day?
Not quite. Mahaney and Whitacre point out the difference between an earthly and a heavenly perspective: “While it’s true that almost nothing we do will be remembered under the sun, everything we do will be recorded for the final judgment.” (152) The fleetingness of our lives is no reason to shrug and give in to sin. People will forget our deeds after we’re gone, but God will not.
Our whole lives—every frustrated dream, every surprising joy, every job that feels like nothing but drudgery—take place under the watchful eye of our Creator. All seasons are from his hand. When we only consider life “under the sun,” it indeed looks like vanity. But God is weaving together each of our days in accordance with his purposes, and he’s using them to draw us closer to himself.
As we seek to obey Christ in the minutiae of our lives, we may not see immediate reward. But our faithfulness will be made known on the last day. The blood of Jesus will cover all our sins, and he’ll graciously reward our obedience. Not the smallest deed will be lost: “In Christ, … our works will last forever.” (154)
So to live wisely, let’s set aside our desperate and futile pursuit of success, wealth, and renown. Instead, remembering the shortness of life and the eye of our Creator, heed Solomon’s advice: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
At first glance, Ecclesiastes may seem good only to make us depressed, doomed pessimists. But if we heed its truth as expounded in True Life, we can instead become “happy, hopeful realists.” (121)
