In our last post, God is good, but life is still hard, we started looking at Solomon’s lament in the book of Ecclesiastes – “vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” We defined vanity as referring to futility, frustration, limitation, and ultimately death which every person experiences as a result of living in a sin-cursed world.

In order to continue on through Ecclesiastes, as well as to continue to flesh out our understanding of pain and loss, we need to go way back to Genesis 3 and look at exactly what this “sin-cursed world” is suffering from.

When Adam and Eve made that universe-altering choice to rebel against God, they were consumed with shame (Gen. 3:7-8), they spiritually died and were separated from God (3:8-10), and their relationship with one another was broken by sin and blame (3:11-13). The effects of the physical curse mirror the spiritual rebellion and death that have already occurred – they died spiritually, now they will die physically. They rebelled against God, now their “domains” will rebel against them – the earth and the creatures in it will rebel against their rule, work will be frustrating and difficult, the woman will rebel against the man’s headship, her children will cause her pain and difficulty.

The curse is like a mirror reflecting the spiritual reality that we cannot see. When my garden is overrun with weeds and pests, it is a physical picture of my own deep-rooted sinfulness that must be constantly subdued or it will take a choke-hold in my heart. When my children rebel and back-talk, they act out for me my own rebellion against God. When my body gets sick, when I am surrounded by struggles with death and decay, I am faced with the harsh reality that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. He has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11), so when physical life is cut short we know that something just isn’t right.

You see, there’s a reason that death and suffering doesn’t sit well with us. We weren’t made for this. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Paradise has been lost.

Solomon, just like us, wrestles with many things in the book of Ecclesiastes. He shares with us the deep angst in his soul over death, sin and injustice, and lack of satisfaction and purpose in life. Ecclesiastes is an unflinchingly honest cry from the heart – one that I appreciate and resonate with more and more the more life I see.

Tomorrow we’ll start looking at Solomon’s specific “complaints” about this life under the sun. In the meantime, I’d love to hear back from you – is this series touching a chord in your own life? Let’s get real: life is hard.

All the posts in this series are indexed here.

Image from wikipedia