Daily Devotions
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-20, 22-25 – Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. … 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. … I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, … What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
We don’t know for sure who the author of Ecclesiastes is, though it’s traditional to credit it to Solomon. But whoever it is, he’s obviously super frustrated.
Here’s a man who looks around at the world using the best human reasoning and philosophy he can come up with—and it isn’t enough. The only ray of hope comes when he mentions God, and he says, “Apart from Him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” Which is absolutely true. Try being sick with a digestive disease, and see how much enjoyment you get out of life!
So what if we follow up that tiny ray of hope, and look to God? Is there hope for us there? Is there meaning for our lives? Because of Jesus, the answer is Yes.
We can’t fix our broken world or our broken lives. But God can do that—and that’s why He came into our world as the Man Christ Jesus. He is meaning and hope and life itself, invading our world to change it forever—because now our lives actually matter. They matter to Him, and we know it because He gave up His own life for us—suffering and dying and rising from the dead, all to make us His own people.
We’ll never find the answer to our problems inside this world. But we find everything we need in Jesus, who came to us from outside—so that we, too, can escape the trap of meaninglessness and find a life that really matters in His kingdom.
WE PRAY: Lord, You give meaning to my life. Keep my eyes and my heart set on You. Amen.
This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.
Reflection Questions:
- What areas of your life feel like a waste of time right now?
- When you feel frustrated, how do you cope?
- How does Jesus make a difference in the frustrations of your life?
Today's Readings:
Psalms 106, 111-1121 Thessalonians 2