Since its founding in 1995, people have used eBay to sell billions of items. They include some odd products and occasionally something priceless. For example…
In 1954, the great physicist Albert Einstein penned a personal letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind in which he defended his views on ethics, religion, and human nature. Nearly 60 years later (2012), it caused a minor media sensation by selling on eBay for $3 million.
A piece of rock that was formed on Mars somehow managed to crash-land on Earth. As one can imagine, the odds against this happening are astronomical! A fragment from one of these rocks was auctioned away for $450,000.
In 2002 an eBay post advertised the sale of an entire "working town" that just needed the "proper development." For the highest bidder, the town—Bridgeville, California—even came with its own zip code: 95526. An anonymous businessman bid $1.77 million but backed out of the deal after visiting some of Bridgeville's desolate shacks. However, the town did find a new buyer that year, who resold it on eBay in 2006 for $1.25 million.
On eBay a man from North Carolina boasted, “I have discovered the reason for existence, and will be happy to share this information with the highest bidder.” The starting bid was one cent. “The meaning for life” sold for $3.26. Neither the buyer nor seller have gone public with the contents of his revelation (Mark Mancini, "7 Priceless Items People Sold on eBay," Mental Floss; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s probably because the buyer got what he paid for—a cheap, worthless revelation.
A lot of people are searching for meaning in life, but no one seems to be able to find it. Even the great King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, struggled in his search for meaning. He wrote about his search for meaning in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible around 3,000 years ago. And though that was so long ago, he provides some of the best insight into the meaning of life that I’ve ever read, even among the more contemporary philosophers. So, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to that book, the book of Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes 1, where Solomon describes his search for meaning.
Ecclesiastes 1:12-14 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind (ESV).
Solomon thoroughly examines everything people do under the sun. He uses all the faculties of his mind and skill to penetrate the core of their toilsome, burdensome labor. He observes all their accomplishments and concludes that they are only striving or chasing after the wind. Any gain or profit from their labor is vanity. Literally, it is but a breath or vaper, which quickly dissipates. There is no lasting value or meaning to anything anyone does on this earth. So if you want to find meaning in life…
LOOK BEYOND YOUR OWN HANDS.
Seek beyond your own accomplishments. Search for significance outside of the work of your own hands.
Every February, Devin Kelly looks forward to meeting his running friends at Farmdaze. It’s a farm in Brooklet, Georgia, where organizers run a 24-hour, ultra-marathon event. Along with the pig roasts and folk music, some runners cover up to 100 miles in a single day, others a fraction of that, but Farmdaze is a place of grace:
The organizers advertise it as “a place that calls itself a race but is really everything that a race isn’t. (It is) an event that lets people give up if they want, that doesn’t shame them for it. (It) lets them become present in the story that is, simply all of us trying to love all of us…”
Originally, Kelly ran competitively for personal pride and for his father, who would travel long distances to see him and his brother run. He loved running because it always meant something.
A few years ago (2020), Kelly was gruelingly pushing himself to reach the 100 miles. He said he found himself alone, “under a field of stars, soaking wet, skin steaming.” He said, “I tried to see the stars, but my headlamp’s glare made it impossible. So, I turned it off and offered myself to the dark. What is the point of all of this,” he asked himself. “What is the… point?”
Suddenly, almost like a bolt of lightning, Kelly… felt partly empty, without purpose… “The truth is,” he said, “I wanted to feel more… There was so much distance between what I felt and what I was supposed to feel. It made me sad… I had believed in what society told me would happen: that I would push through a challenge and emerge, new and strong, where love was. But I was left instead with the deep, profound emptiness knowing entirely for certain that what you were told by society was wrong… (Devin Kelly, “Out There: On Not Finishing,” Longreads, September, 2020; www.PreachingToday.com).
When you push through a challenge and emerge, you do not ultimately feel new and strong. If anything, after the euphoria wears off, you feel lonely and empty, wrestling with meaning. It’s like Solomon said, “All is vanity and a chasing after wind.”
Ecclesiastes 1:15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted (ESV).
You think you can straighten what is crooked in the world. You think you can supply what is lacking. You think you’re going to make the world a better place. Think again, because nothing you do, no matter how hard you work, is going make any difference whatsoever.
Tony Hsieh (pronounced “Shay”) wanted to promote happiness and world peace. The brilliant business guru took over Zappos soon after it was founded. Under his leadership, he propelled it from a company on the verge of collapse to a successful online retail enterprise that sold to Amazon for $1.2 billion in 2009.
After the publication of his book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose, he became a workplace-happiness guru. Thousands of business leaders, government officials, and Wall Street analysts flocked to Zappos’s downtown Las Vegas headquarters each year to take tours of its fun-filled offices and learn from Mr. Hsieh.
When Hsieh stepped down as CEO of Zappos in August of 2020, he thought he could achieve world peace. He moved to Park City, Utah, and wanted to attract intellectuals and artists with outsize salaries to create a sort of utopia. The blueprint for this model town could then be applied to other cities across the world.
But behind his swift success, Mr. Hsieh had for years struggled privately with social anxiety, autism, and alcohol abuse. Five months before his death, he suffered a breakdown after abusing drugs, in particular a drug that some describe as “spiritual.”
He had also developed a fascination with fire. He liked fooling around with it and performing magic tricks. Candles were sometimes perched dangerously on his bedspread, and Mr. Hsieh kept a small fire ring in his bedroom that shot flames into the air without any barrier. Sadly, he died at 46 in November 2020, from injuries sustained in a house fire that local authorities ruled an accident (Kristen Grind, “The Rise and Fall of the Management Visionary Behind Zappos,” Wall Street Journal, 3-12-22; www. PreachingToday.com).
Hsieh wanted to change the world, but he couldn’t even change himself. Human effort, without God’s intervention, accomplishes nothing. Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). You cannot change yourself, much less the world, without Christ.
So, if you want to find meaning in life, look beyond your own hands. More than that…
LOOK BEYOND YOUR OWN HEAD.
Seek beyond your own understanding. Search for significance in a place outside of human wisdom.
Ecclesiastes 1:16-17 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind (ESV).
Solomon’s vast experience and great wisdom failed him in his search for meaning. It’s like “chasing after wind,” Solomon says. You waste your time, because no one ever catches the wind.
In fact, instead of helping you find meaning in life, wisdom only increases your misery.
Ecclesiastes 1:18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow (ESV).
Increased perception only increases the pain.
Have you ever heard of “information overload?” It was a phrase Alvin Toffler popularized in 1970 in his book Future Shock. As he looked into the future, he saw a world of people overcome with “information overload,” and that’s exactly what has happened. There are e-mails to answer, virtual friends to pester, YouTube videos to watch, and social media to check. In the physical world, there are meetings to attend, papers to shuffle, and spouses to appease.
A survey by Reuters once found that two-thirds of managers believe that the data deluge has made their jobs less satisfying or hurt their personal relationships. One-third think that it has damaged their health. Another survey suggests that most managers think most of the information they receive is useless.
Johann Hari, a British journalist, notes that there is a good reason why “wired” means both “connected to the internet” and “high, frantic, unable to concentrate” (“Too Much Information: How to Cope with Data Overload,” The Economist, 6-30-11; www.PreachingToday.com).
Wisdom will fail you in your search for meaning. It only makes you miserable.
And it leaves you no better off than the fool. Both the wise man and the fool die and are soon forgotten. Skip down to Ecclesiastes 2:12
Ecclesiastes 2:12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done (ESV).
Two times in this passage, Solomon has said, “I surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem” (1:16; 2:9). Now, he says, “No one after me can do anything more than I’ve already done.” Solomon was at the pinnacle of human achievement and wisdom, but he found himself no better off than the fool.
Ecclesiastes 2:13-14 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them (ESV).
While the wise person has certain advantages over the fool, both end up in the same place. The wise person can see where he is going. The fool stumbles around in darkness. But both end up dead.
Ecclesiastes 2:15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity (ESV).
This also is but a breath or vapor. All my effort in acquiring wisdom is easily dissipated in death.
Ecclesiastes 2:16-17 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind (ESV).
Acquiring wisdom to find meaning in life is pointless, because wisdom leaves you no better off than the fool.
In a recent Scientific American article, John Horgan wonders about the point of all their study and learning if life will cease to exist in the end. He writes:
“Our works of science, mathematics, philosophy, art, music and, yes, journalism will slip back into the void whence they came. Everything we have thought and done will be for naught. If nothing about us endures, if nothing is remembered, we might as well never have existed” (John Horgan, “Will the Universe Remember Us after We’re Gone?” Scientific American, 11-5-20; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s the only logical conclusion of life without God. If nothing is remembered, there is no point to all our learning and knowledge. Everyone dies and is soon forgotten, which takes away all meaning to life.
Steven James talks about being on an airplane where the flight attendant was going through the pre-flight spiel, instructing the passengers on what to do “in case of a water landing.”
James says, “I looked around. We were on a 747 jet. This plane isn't equipped with pontoons. A 747 doesn't ‘land’ on the water. It explodes on impact into pieces the size of my toenail.
“The proper way to prepare for an event like this is not to stick your head between your knees (as if there were room to do that anyway) but to scream until your throat bleeds and pray in six languages at once.”
James continues, “I arrived home (without experiencing a water landing, thankfully) and turned on the TV, and a commercial came on for life insurance. This guy walks onto the set all somber-looking and explains the benefits of their policy. Then he says I should sign up so my family will be taken care of ‘in case the unthinkable should happen.’ Of course, by ‘the unthinkable,’ he means ‘in case you die.’
“But the thing is, death isn't unthinkable; it's inevitable,” James says.
Then he asks the question, “What kind of culture calls things that are inevitable unthinkable? What kind of world refuses to think about what is certain but instead spends its time worrying about things that aren't?” (Steven James, Sailing Between the Stars, Revell, 2006, pp. 130-131; www.PreachingToday.com).
It's the kind of culture that cannot face its own demise, because it cannot face life without any meaning.
When you live your life “under the sun,” without God, then your life loses all its meaning. So, if you want to find meaning in life, look above the sun. Look beyond your own hands. Look beyond your own head. And finally…
LOOK BEYOND YOUR OWN HEART.
Seek for meaning beyond your own feelings. Search for significance outside your own pleasure and happiness. Go back to Ecclesiastes 2:1
Ecclesiastes 2:1-2 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” (ESV)
Forget the hard work. Forget the endless acquisition of knowledge. Just enjoy yourself and see if that brings any meaning to life. To which Solomon concludes: that too is vanity (just a vapor which quickly dissipates); that too is madness; that too is useless.
Ecclesiastes 2:3-8 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man (ESV).
Solomon tried wine, women, and song. He tried mansions, gardens, and wealth, but found no meaning in any of that.
Ecclesiastes 2:9-11 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun (ESV).
Solomon surpassed everyone else in his pursuit of pleasure. 1 Kings 10:23 says, “King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.” Yet he could find no meaning in any of it. None of it satisfied him. All of it just left him empty, exhausted, and useless.
Ernest Hemingway lived such a life. Born in 1899, he was the epitome of the twentieth-century man. At age 25, he sipped champagne in Paris. Later, he had well-publicized game hunts in Africa. And after that, he hunted grizzly bears in America's northwest. But at the age of sixty-one, after having it all—wine, women, song, a distinguished literary career, Sunday afternoon bullfights in Spain—Hemingway chose to end his life. He left a note saying, “Life is one damn thing after another” (Gary D. Preston, “Our Endless Pursuit of Pleasure,” Discipleship Journal, Nov/Dec 1983; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s where his existentialism led him. His pursuit of immediate pleasure, disregarding the traditions of the past and the consequences of the future, led him to despair. His heart failed to bring him fulfillment in life, and your heart will fail you, as well.
“Follow your heart” is the worst advise I’ve ever heard. Because, if you follow your heart, it will only lead you to misery and ruin.
In the 2013 film, Gravity, Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, is a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky, played by Georg Clooney. On a routine spacewalk, the shuttle is destroyed by a freak hail of space debris, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone. According to one description of the film, “They are tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth... and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.”
After the film's release, the German magazine Der Spiegel asked 69-year-old German astronaut Ulrich Walter to fact-check the film. Walter said that after becoming completely untethered, Sandra Bullock's character would have died. The interviewer commented, “That doesn't sound like a very nice way to go, drifting through nothingness in a spacesuit, waiting to die.”
But Ulrich replied, “When you're slowly running out of oxygen… everything seems funny. And as you're laughing about it, you slowly nod off.” Ulrich said, “I experienced this phenomenon in an altitude chamber during my training as an astronaut. At some point, someone in the group starts cracking bad jokes… A person who dies alone in space dies a cheerful death.” In other words, your situation is hopeless, you're slowly dying, but you think it's funny (Olaf Sampf, “Death in Space Is a Cheerful Death,” Spiegel Online, 10-23-13; www.Preaching Today.com).
That’s the state of our culture today. Cut off from a spiritual oxygen supply, many are drifting through nothingness, waiting to die, and yet everything seems funny. As Neil Postman once put it, “We are just “amusing ourselves to death.” Please, don’t let that happen to you.
In your pursuit of meaning in life, look beyond your own hands; look beyond your own head; and look beyond your own heart. Look beyond the sun to the Lord, who died for you and rose again. He came that you might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). So find a life full of meaning in Him.
It’s like C. S. Lewis once said, “Look for yourself and you will find in the long run hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find him, and with him everything else thrown in” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).
