Dr. Danny Carroll preached at City Presbyterian Church (Denver) today. He teaches Old Testament at Denver Seminary, and I'm always glad to hear his expositions of Scripture. Today he preached from Ecclesiastes 1:12-14 and 3:1-15.
Along the way he made the point that the meaninglessness that so harshly oppresses the author is in fact part of the meaning of life. That is, since God "has also set eternity in the human heart" (3:11), no non-eternal pursuit can fill that spot. Only God himself can fill it. Thus this ache at our inability to satisfy that hunger is itself a window on what our lives mean and where we are headed.
I wonder how well the maxim, "The journey is the destination," fits that perspective.
1 comment:
"No non-eternal pursuit can fill that spot. Only God himself can fill it."
While I know you believe this in good faith and I have no desire to pick a fight with you over its merits, I do think it's worth noting that it's exactly this kind of thinking which has plagued me and, I think, other post-Christians. Having imbibed this philosophy for years, it was tough to find meaning in a fragile and temporary, purely physical life. For what it's worth, I did find that meaning after I confronted and found wanting the assumption that eternality is a necessary component of meaning. My eyes were opened to the wealth of meaning already around me--and, at least on the good days, I now have a strong sense of meaning without harboring a belief in the eternal.
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