Everything Is Meaningless

Ecclesiastes 1:18
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.

I met a Brother in Christ at work today. He had his bible open on his desk in his beautiful corporate office. "Read anything good today?" I asked as I try to break the ice. He nodded negatively, probably an attempt to remain politically correct. As I gave him an avenue to feel comfortable he open up and greeeted in the Lord. I shared how my church had just completed reading a "Proverb a day" for the month of October and encouraged him to do the same during December. He seemed to like the idea. He proceeded to tell me how he listens to Charles Swindoll in the mornings and shared some of his teachings. We started talking about Ecclesiastes and how it relates to man's quest to find out the meaning of life. More importantly "the Teacher" writes about things that correspond to the emotional struggles of life's daily grind. I was blessed to take some time out of my day to fellowship with him.

At lunch I read the first chapter of Ecclesiastes. The whole "everything is meaningless" can be easily taken out of context. It led me to some questions: Is this a good or bad observation? Is it one that arises out of frustration? I'm at a point in my life where I can easily subscribe to taking this chapter in a solitary way, for no other reason than to feel like someone identifies with me. I realize that is time is nothing more than a season and like Mrs. KB said "we must go through the fire to become refined."