What Are You Doing Here? | The Ache of Failure | Wasted Time

I have seen everything going on under the sun, and it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind.  Ecclesiastes 1:14 

“Looks like a suicide,” the CSI said to the detective examining the body of a muscular young man. “Shame, too. Good lookin’ dude, nice digs, and a girl’s picture on the mantle.” The detective nodded and let the cloth fall back across the body, careful to avoid the pool of blood near the victim’s head. A tech called from across the room. “Hey, Slater, you need to see this.” The detective walked slowly toward the bedroom doorway while observing the expensive furnishings and art on the walls. He stopped at the door and the tech pointed to a glass shelf. “Look at that stuff! Guy was a stud. Olympic winner. Won a silver medal and four golds.”

We often gaze with admiration at people who seem to have it all. Those at the top of their game must be deliriously happy, right? Not necessarily. One of life’s greatest disappointments is to reach a goal and find it meaningless. You worked for it, dreamed about it, sacrificed for it, and then you get it and find it doesn’t matter. Even Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, came to that point. His journaled musings became the book of Ecclesiastes. Sometimes we are disappointed with ourselves when we realize all we lived for has become dust in the wind. We wasted our lives striving for things that don’t matter. But God will use even those wasted years to create something of eternal value if we use them to impact others.

Final Thought: Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things that don’t really matter. – Francis Chan
Prayer: Father, for much of my life I have aimed for goals that don’t really matter. I wanted to be smarter, better looking, richer, and even when I reached some of them, they weren’t enough to satisfy me. I’m ready to make your goals mine. Amen.