The Meaning Crisis –
“A widespread cultural and psychological feeling that life lacks inherent purpose, significance, and deep connection; it is a modern ‘existential vacuum’ where people enjoy material comfort but struggle to find a reason why they are here.” John Vervaeke
Nietzsche envisioned a society of comfortable, hyper-individualistic consumers, seeking nothing but safety and shallow pleasures, drowning in comfort, technology, and entertainment, yet profoundly empty inside.
Qohelet – Ekklesiastes
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’ What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new’? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.
Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 New International Version (NIV)
Hevel – Vapor or smoke
I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless (hevel), a chasing after the wind.
Ecclesiastes 1:14 (NIV)
“Nothing created has ever been able to fill the heart of man. God alone can fill it infinitely.” Thomas Aquinas
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11-12 (NIV)
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”
MATTHEW 16:25-26 (NIV)
In the end, it’s all from Him, it’s all for Him, so let it go, and live free.