Happiness.
Contentment.
Money.
Fame.
Good works.
Interconnected as they seem, yet
patterned with view of the world.
Many people (I myself is not exempted) chase happiness. Who does want to be
sad, right? Most of the time, people of this world live merely just for their
happiness. Students go into schools and universities to earn a degree to have a
job. Then after sometime, they work 8 hours a day plus extra hours (and extra
hours) to get a big salary. Others work to impress other people, especially
their superiors to be promoted to higher position with a higher salary. THERE’S
NOTHING WRONG WITH THOSE. Yet, there will be no end for the longing. People are
always wanting for more. No contentment. No lasting happiness.
When you read the Book of
Ecclesiastes, you’ll find there King Solomon’s descriptive word for everything—meaningless.
He is a king who’s so wise and experienced everything: wealth, fame, people, everything.
He even tried the bad side of life: wine, mistress and madness. Yet after all
these, he said that everything was meaningless. Our fame, wealth, achievements
and everything else are meaningless. Am I making a point here? Well, those
things were temporary. Those things give us happiness but just for a short
period of time. Our deeds? Those too won’t be remembered a hundred of years
from now (maybe if you’re in the historical line of someone famous like kings,
prince and princesses or really did an astonishing act in your time… that would
have a chance to be remembered). But for ordinary man living on earth? I think
it’s a no.
Just imagine a rope infinitely
long. You cannot see it ends and you are holding the other tip. Three inches
from that tip is your life here on earth, and from the 3-inch end boundary up
to the infinity is the afterlife, where will you focus? Most of the people were
too preoccupied with that three-inch part not thinking of the infinite part to
come. Right? You see, I’m not that old to say these things. Yet, what I want to
do, I cannot do, just like apostle Paul. The world unconsciously drags me away from these truth. The world
load me with worries and doubts and fears instead of trust and faith and love
for the Creator. The world gets my time. I do things on my way, not even
thinking God who has breathed life to me.
Ponder.
Why would people are so consumed with
things of the world that are fleeting when there’s a life that is eternal? Nothing
is bad in having the things we want: fashion, travel, gadgets and many more. Nothing
is wrong about getting rich. Nothing is wrong in eating, drinking and partying.
Nothing is wrong if there’s no GOD who will judge us in the end as the wise
teacher includes in Ecclesiastes 11:9
Your fame, wealth, achievements,
everything will soon be gone. Mine too. If everything is meaningless, what’s
the point of still living now? What’s the point of toiling around if happiness
is temporary?
There is. A lasting joy exist. Yet
it cannot be acquired not by your own effort works but by grace. Only GOD
can fill that hole in your heart that searches for happiness. HE has designed
that, that emptiness you feel even you have what you want. He has designed that
for you know HIM and for HIM to fill it. No matter what you do or what you
acquire, at the end of the day, it’s still GOD who made you. HE knows your
purpose for HE is your Creator. And when you get to know HIM, He’ll show you
the way to that true and undying happiness—by giving HIM glory through
fulfilling what HE has called you to do.
