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Solomon’s focus on the injustices “under the sun” led him into a dark place. He concluded that a dead person is more fortunate than a living person because they don’t have to deal with the confusing challenges of life. In fact, he said, it would be better not to be born. Here’s what he wrote.
Ecclesiastes 4:2-3
And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.
Solomon’s focus on injustice led him to conclude (at least for a short time) that it would be better to be dead or not to have been born than to deal with the stuff around us. By the way, this is not an uncommon conclusion.
Today we are flooded with bad news. Bad news sells, and in a world of injustice, there is plenty of it. I just opened my newsfeed to see the headlines of a sexual assault, a family that has vanished from their home, a man who murdered his daughter and is set to be executed, a strip tease act that took place in a high school gym, the death of a son, and a story about a mass shooting in North Carolina. There was plenty more bad news, but I stopped scrolling. We can become so burdened by evil that it impacts us physically and mentally. “What’s this world coming to?” “Is life worth living?” These questions echo across our country—well, let’s be honest—across our churches. Like Solomon, we conclude that life is so unfair and unjust that it would be better not to live, even better to have never been born. Satan loves it when we are immersed in evil instead of rejoicing and obeying the One who defeated sin once and for all on the cross.
The German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “In the center of the world, from the wood of the cross, the fountain of life springs up.” It is Jesus alone that brings life to our souls and our minds. Read his Word. Listen to the hope that he brings. When our focus is on our newsfeed instead of Jesus, we will become weary of life. When our focus is on Jesus rather than our personal circumstances and the injustices of the world, “the fountain of life springs up.”
Father, help us shut off the news and open our Bibles. Help us quit scrolling through the newsfeeds and open our Bible apps. Take our focus off things we can’t control and on the One who controls all things. Convict us of immersing ourselves in the evils. Guide us to immerse ourselves in Jesus. Give us the wisdom of an eternal perspective in a world that has been steeped in evil since Genesis 3. Help us never to hide in the darkness but stand firmly in the light. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you for these daily devotionals. Greatly appreciated! I have been listening/reading them each and every day for several years now, and I will continue to do so. Have a blessed weekend.