Less is More

Less is More

Which is better to have, 10,000 pennies or $1000? It doesn’t take a math whiz to tell you that you are $900 more in the black with the dollar amount over the giant pile of coins. (Not to mention it’s about 55 pounds lighter!) At a basic level we understand that value dictates worth, not necessarily abundance. So why do we treat our relationship with God differently? Too many times we’re under the impression that it is quantity time that God desires instead of quality time. We mark off the hours spent in church pews, dutifully spend time reading or in prayer, but how many times is our heart elsewhere? You can sing the words on Sunday morning but that doesn’t make it worship. And that is part of what makes Solomon so insistent in our study of Ecclesiastes, that although so much may seem meaningless and a chasing after the wind, we shouldn’t be content merely to mark the time away. It is still too precious and finite a resource to waste. The issue isn’t that so much is meaningless, it is that we choose to throw our time away after so many meaningless pursuits.

And here we have Solomon, toward the end of his reign, looking to pass on his keen insights and wisdom to succeeding generations. But why does he do this? “For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die!” (Ecclesiastes 2:16) Solomon acts; knowing that God has already foreseen our fates and that if there is any hope of eternity it rests with Him. We know that from dust we come and to dust we are to return. Solomon takes great pains to point out to us that our wisdom, toil, advancement, and achievements are chasing after the wind. But he also makes the effort to write these insights down. Therefore, there is an implicit distinction between chasing after the wind and wasting our time. And Solomon indicates that working toward God’s Kingdom is the only worthwhile endeavor by any possible mechanism. “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment.” (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25) “I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil–this is the gift of God.” (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13) “Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him–for this is his lot.” (Ecclesiastes 5:18) 

Pick up on that subtle pattern did you? Notice that eating, drinking, and finding satisfaction in your work are all activities that are things one does in the moment. He does not advise finding pleasure in “glory days” of youth, or dreaming of pleasant retirement scenarios. Solomon understands that all man is given is the moment he finds himself in, and that even all of those moments combined are still vanishingly brief under the sun. There is a wonderful dovetail in this lifestyle with the description Paul gives of a church as one singular body. Solomon has enough faith in God’s sovereignty to know that He is capable of working seamlessly through all of our disparate and distinct endeavors. As Americans, this is a tad more difficult to swallow. After all, if we are going to work toward something we want to be noticed! We’ll want to lead the charge, make the play, drive the spike, be lauded. But Solomon suggests that it is best for something far humbler. To eat, drink, and find satisfaction in your work. How much more efficiently could God’s church body move if all the parts weren’t angling for the limelight? What if we could derive satisfaction from the peace of being in God’s Will rather than receiving the adulation of our neighbors? “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:2-4) What a strange notion in the social media age.

Which leads us adroitly to Solomon’s warnings at the start of chapter 5. He begins this chapter emphasizing just how seriously we should take our worship of God. “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.” (Ecclesiastes 5:1) And specifically in our attitude toward God Himself. “When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it.” (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5) No one forces you to make a vow with the Lord. If you do so in haste, it is your own folly. It is far better to take care in the words you choose to speak to the Almighty. It is true that God desires a relationship with you, the sacrifice of His Son is proof enough of that. But that is not an invitation to act flippantly toward Him. Quite the contrary. “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” (Ecclesiastes 5:2) Likely all of us have suffered under someone praying at length, whose speechifying before a congregation stretches the solemnity of prayer time to its (or past) its limit. God very much prefers ‘show’ over ‘tell’. And cannot be swayed by any passionate rhetoric. Especially in group settings, be mindful of who your audience is when praying. Are you talking for the benefit of others, yourself, or humbly petitioning the Lord of the universe? Beginning by examining that question should clarify what comes after. 

Aside from an admonition against using prayer to establish your “religious bona fides”, Solomon has more than a few words set aside for the treatment of and attitude toward wealth. Verse 8 opens with an understanding that wealth and its disparity will always exist. A sentiment more famously recorded in Matthew 26:11, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” Solomon recognizes that there will be officials that lord over their charges, who have supervisors and bosses of their own, who even have superiors and others even higher they must answer to. “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.” (Ecclesiastes 5:10) Even here it is suggested how faith can bring peace. Loving money will lead to an insatiable hunger, but the verses discussed earlier suggest that one should eat, drink and be satisfied. One could easily draw a line from this dichotomy to the truth that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Or even perhaps, “but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14) What Solomon is implying, and what Jesus told straight to us {“I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old” (Psalms 78:2)} is that there is so so much more to this world than meets the eye. Solomon dutifully describes to us just how much of what we view is in the end very meaningless. But the whole of Scripture proves to us that we have hopes that surpass anything of this world!

The difference between a curative and a poison very often rests in the dosage. So which is better to have? Too much, not enough? Are we to “Goldilocks” our way through life and try to have just the right amount? Is the prayer too long, too short? Is my vow too hastily made, not made stringent enough? “The more the words the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone? For who knows what is good for a man in life, during the few and meaningless days he passes through like a shadow? Who can tell him what will happen under the sun after he is gone?” (Ecclesiastes 6:11-12) There’s that phrase again, ‘under the sun’. Solomon has described, ad nauseam, the meaninglessness of life ‘under the sun’. All of the fruits of mankind’s labor, all of our wisdom and folly, all of our life and care, all of our hopes and dreams, all of our meanest demons and our highest aspirations come to a crashing end that, ultimately, will be forgotten. But again, we see that the corollary with Jesus is even more instructive than the wisdom of Solomon. “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36) Jesus concurs here with Ecclesiastes, that to gain even the entirety of the world, means nothing without dedicating your soul to God. But, why?!? Because there are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. We have a hope that exceeds the entirety of this earth, because we do not live ‘under the sun’ but under The Son. (Cringey I know, but I’m a sucker for homophones.) Do not fixate your gaze on the things of this world, look beyond them to the viewpoint that only faith may give. To the world you will be walking blindly, but Solomon helps us to understand they are the ones meandering without meaning. Allow God’s Word to light your way and walk a path with purpose. Anything else would just be meaningless.  

Jordan Williamson