“All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied” (Ecclesiastes 6:7 ESV).

One of the primary truths in Ecclesiastes is that nothing in this world totally satisfies our yearnings. Try as we may to experience things that will make us happy, we still find ourselves longing for Something More. Human life is a bittersweet business. Even our best joys are blemished — our experiences rarely meet our expectations, and unpredictable disappointments undermine our happiness. Solomon was merely being honest when he said, “All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.”

And yet, it’s also true that we’re too satisfied. This world may not be perfect, but we like it very much — the thought of leaving it anytime soon is most unwelcome. Our preachers tell us we should be more content, but most of us have the opposite problem: we’ve settled down in this world so comfortably that it’s rare for us to feel any “groaning” like Paul’s in 2 Corinthians 5:1,2: “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven” (NKJV). In the “advanced” countries of the world, we think heaven might be nice — after we’ve enjoyed all we want to in the material world. The fact is, we’re too satisfied with what we’ve got right now. When it comes to true treasure, we’ve settled for pitifully little.

So our outlook is paradoxical. Deep in our hearts, we’re still unsatisfied, yet we’re more satisfied than we should be. Dangerously empty, we deny (or ignore) that fact and tell ourselves that we’re full enough. Indeed, we suppose that we’re getting along fairly nicely.

The Problem of Pretense

Most of us do a lot of pretending. We pretend that our happiness in this world is more fulfilling than it really is — and we don’t long for our inward character to be perfected as much as we say we do. But a Day of Judgment is coming. “God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). Whatever delusions about ourselves we may have harbored, that Day will be a revelation of what God knows about our hearts: how much a perfect relationship with Him really mattered to us. I don’t mean this life’s relationship, but the sinless relationship that eternity alone can make possible. God will know — and reveal to the rest of creation — what kind of people we truly were in this world. Were we people who “hungered and thirsted” (Matthew 5:6) for a heart perfectly submitted to God, yearning for that with an aching emptiness? If so, we will be filled. But what if we were people for whom it was enough to attend friendly church services and have lovable grandkids? We will be banished — God’s creation having been what we wanted all along, and not God Himself.

Consider the question of spiritual growth. It is a gradual process for all of us, of course, but how intense is your longing to “grow up in all things into [Christ] who is the head” (Ephesians 4:15)? Is it a desperately felt need? Many of us would lose more sleep over a financial shortfall than a spiritual deficiency. Perhaps we hold a view of grace that says we don’t need to work very hard at “perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). Without intending to, maybe our theology has bred complacency, making us more comfortable with the present condition of our hearts than God wants us to be.

Strangely, Christ’s letter to the Laodicean Christians doesn’t disturb us today, even though the parallels between their material affluence and our own are striking. Are we as out of touch with our condition as they were with theirs? Are we satisfied with our prosperity and our “religion” but not bothered by the distance we’ve kept between ourselves and God? The Lord’s letter to Laodicea ought to unsettle us: “Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ — and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked — I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:17-19).

The Eternal Kingdom

Granted, we have been “saved.” But that is true only in a preliminary sense. Our greater — and more important — salvation will be in eternity. The kingdom in which we now participate is, if I might put it so, the “foyer” of a kingdom into which we’ve not yet been given entrance (2 Peter 1:11). And in 1 Peter 1:5, the apostle spoke of a “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” In our teaching on salvation and the kingdom of God, I suggest that more emphasis needs to be placed on the eternal dimension of these things, which is the heart of the gospel’s hope (1 Peter 1:3,4). To be content with less is to sell out, lowering our sights from the exalted kingdom that Christ is going to deliver to His Father in the end (1 Corinthians 15:24-26).

The question of “unsatisfaction” has profound implications for evangelism today. As wealth and material comfort spread around the globe, more and more people will live in denial about the limitations of temporal happiness. They may admit the present world is not perfect, but as long as they believe it is adequate, they’ll have little interest in “salvation.” C. S. Lewis said it well in a memorable quote: “A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world — and might even be more difficult to save.” The tragedy is not that earthly happiness fails to satisfy, but that it satisfies just enough to keep us from seeking anything more. Like candy, it dupes us into thinking we don’t need anything to eat.

For this reason, God sends hardship into the lives of all whom He wishes to save (i.e., everybody). He makes even His own blessings “unsatisfying” to us, often withholding the fulfillment we expect to receive from created things in order to pull us toward Himself, the Creator. He did this with Israel in the wilderness: “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3). Loving us as He loved Israel, He uses hardship the same way today (Hebrews 12:5-11; James 1:2-4). But do we get the point any more than Israel did?

Conclusion

If we’re content with fulfillments that are inadequate (Luke 12:19), we’re in trouble. In the end, every source of happiness we’ve experienced, except God, is going to fall away from us. Where will we be then, if we haven’t learned — through the hardship, suffering, and discipline God has sent our way — that He is all we need? For our benefit, may God withdraw from us right now any blessing that has made us stop growing or made us think we’re doing better spiritually than we are.

Here are some suggestions:

• Be honest enough to say to God that what you enjoy of Him right now is not enough, that you hunger for more than you have — or ever could have — in a world like this one.

• Appreciate that the hardships God sends into your life are to make you let go of this world.

• Give up the silly idea that if you’re a Christian this world’s “vanity” doesn’t apply to you.

• By permanently giving up a few of the pleasures that you’re most hooked on, prove that you’re not addicted to enjoyment.

We certainly need to be “content with such things as [we] have” (Hebrews 13:5), and I think we should delightfully enjoy the simple happy things that occur from day to day. But God forbid that we should think that anything in His creation — not even the local congregation or our families — will quench our thirst. Only He can do that — and it is only in heaven that He plans to do so.

Until then, I hope that every gap in your spiritual maturity will disturb you and be an irritant that moves you toward “perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:2).

There will be time enough for rest later on. Right now, what we need is growth . . . and satisfied people don’t grow!

“Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure” (G. K. Chesterton).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
(Psalm 90:10)

The speed at which a normal human lifespan flashes by is shocking. If you’ve ever been a construction worker putting in twelve-hour shifts in the hot August sun or painfully watched the hands of a slow-moving clock from a hospital bed, you know that single days (or nights) can seem long. But the years are another story. They go by swiftly. As someone has said, “The days are slow, but the years are sudden.”

Moses, who wrote Psalm 90, knew that even if we live seventy or eighty years, those years escape us quickly. In a world subjected by God to “futility” (Romans 8:20), our life “is soon cut off, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10). Job put it starkly: “Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and fades away; he flees like a shadow and does not continue” (Job 14:1,2).

If you are young, or perhaps living more comfortably than most people in the world, you’ll probably mute these statements with a “yes, but” (or even argue that they contradict the Christian outlook). But I caution you to be careful. Charles Barkley, commenting at halftime during a lopsided basketball game, said about the team that had fallen hopelessly behind, “For these guys, the game got late way too early.” Barkley is not a theologian, but on this point, he certainly could be.

Of course, the brevity of life is one of those biblical truths that people quickly affirm and then promptly ignore. So I ask you, dear reader: how seriously — at the practical level — do you deal with the fact that our lives are “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14)? Are you “grass” (1 Peter 1:24,25) that ignores its grassiness . . . until it has become too late to play catch-up on your life’s duties?

We all know that we’ve lagged behind in our spiritual growth and that we’ve put off making much-needed improvements in our habits. But we also think we’ve got plenty of time left to get that garage of ours cleaned out and then pursue our dreams. But take it from one who knows: the time will sneak up on you — suddenly — when you will agree with an old Black neighbor of mine in Mississippi who, when I asked how he was doing, said, “The busses ain’t runnin’ and the train won’t let me ride no mo’.”

“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late” (Benjamin Franklin).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

Today, we are announcing an exciting new focus for this blog. No longer just generic posts, now it will be called: Ecclesiastes Workshop.

So far, I’ve been posting miscellaneous articles in this space, simply to jumpstart Substack and resolve some workflow issues. These past articles will probably be deleted at some point, and from now on, all the articl…

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“For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29).

Suffering is a part of life in this world. It can’t be avoided. Some of a Christian’s suffering will result from his relationship to Christ, and some will just be the pain that everybody experiences. Yet no matter what kin…

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Righteousness will go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps our pathway.
(Psalm 85:13)

A path can be a valuable thing to have. Especially in unknown territory, a path can make the difference between life and death. For that reason, the pathway of Jesus’ life is crucial. How He lived His life is of more than historical interest; it shows us what a perfec…

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Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.
(Psalm 149:2)

How happy God must be when His people sing to Him joyfully! God is love, and if, as I believe, God created us in order to love us, it can’t be anything but a joy for Him to receive the worship of those who are happy to praise Him. In this life, our praise is …

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“For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matthew 23:4).

I had asked Google to create an image of a preacher speaking to a congregation. The image provided by Google was usable, but I needed a few changes to the speaker’s appearance. While I was waiting …

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“In imitation of the holy One who has called you — you also must be holy in all your habits of life” (1 Peter 1:15 Weymouth).

Often disparaged, habit is more valuable than we make it out to be. If habit is a pattern of behavior that has become typical within a person’s life, shouldn’t we want obedience to God to become such? When doing what is right has …

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“Our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

There are a few things every human being has to have. The question is, where shall we look for these? If we deny there is a God, we’ll have to do the best we can to find these things within ourselves or in the secular world around us. However, even if we profess faith in God and acknowledge Him as the so…

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“By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7).

When we think about the deeds recorded in Hebrews 11, it’s hard to imagine the level of trust those people m…

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“Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11).

If you know me, you know I love questions. Not long ago, I found myself thinking about the fundamental importance of two questions that, when answered honestly, greatly influence our spiritual growth. I invite you to ponder these with me for a…

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“For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10).

Sometimes the challenges of life feel overwhelming. The big picture can seem so large that nothing we could put on our to-do list would be enough to make a difference. And when it comes to the building of a godly character, which is one of life’s most important “projects,” we may have fall…

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“This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare” (1 Timothy 1:18).

Being “charged” with a responsibility is a weighty matter. A charge is not an offhand suggestion or wish; it is a solemn duty. It is the delegation of a significant task to one who is ready t…

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“. . . with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men” (Ephesians 6:7).

Too often in our lives, Christ becomes “compartmentalized.” He occupies the “religious” part, but in the “secular” part, we hardly even think about Him — and these days, the secular part has a voracious appetite. With every passing day, it eats up an ever greater percent…

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“I long to depart and be with Christ . . .” (Philippians 1:23 CSB).

Crossing life’s final border will be the ultimate “arrival.” To reach at last a destination we’ve looked forward to all our lives will be a joy that human words can’t describe. Our “eyes” wide with wonder and our minds swept into complete awe by the King’s majesty, we will “set down our …

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Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name;
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
(Psalm 29:2)

How many different ways do you suppose we could glorify God? I’m thinking here primarily of our individual lives rather than congregational activity. The most obvious way would be speaking of God’s glory in the hearing of other people, but I believe some …

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Beautiful in elevation,
The joy of the whole earth,
Is Mount Zion on the sides of the north,
The city of the great King.
(Psalm 48:2)

There is a city. I shall go there one day. Even now, I see it in my best dreams. Its white stones gleam in a warm, welcoming light better than any earthly sunrise. Strength, safety, and beauty bless those whose home is there. …

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