Life Is A Merry-Go-Round

If you were to get an email from a close friend and the email started this way, top line, empty, futile, everything is meaningless. It would get your attention, wouldn't it? I mean, you'd want to read that email, find out what is going on with my friend. But that is exactly the way Solomon starts the Book of Ecclesiastes. A couple of weeks ago, we introduced the Book of Ecclesiastes to you. It did kind of a preview of it, trailer of the movie of Ecclesiastes. But today we're going to jump into the book itself. So I invite your attention to the Book of Ecclesiastes. Follows Proverbs in your Old Testament. And we'll find what Solomon has to say to us. He begins the book this way, the words of the teacher, son of David, King in Jerusalem. Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher. Utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless. Now that grabs your attention. Four times he uses that word meaningless in the very first part of the book, very first two verses. The word actually is a word which means breath. It's sometimes translated vanity or empty. But the word literally means breath. What are you saying? This is like a breath. If you see your breath on a cold winter day, it's there and then it's it vanishes. It's gone. It's like a puff of smoke or another phrase that Solomon uses to describe the same concept is a chasing after the wind. Four times in the first two chapters he uses that expression to chase after the wind. Can you imagine anything more futile than that? The idea is that there is nothing to grab onto. There is nothing to latch onto in life, nothing of real substance, nothing of real meaning or purpose. You say, well, that's a mighty pessimistic way to start the book. So maybe it would be good for us to step back for just a moment and remind ourselves of Solomon's purpose in this book. Solomon's purpose basically is not to be pessimistic, but he's going to knock the props out from under us so that we're ready for his real message. That's how he starts. The real message of the book as we saw a couple of weeks ago is how to enjoy life or find real meaning, purpose and fulfillment in life. How do you find real meaning in life? Solomon is going to describe a number of ways that people try to do that, but he's basically going to say, life cannot be enjoyed as God intended it to be. There cannot be real meaning or purpose to life as God intended it to be without a relationship with God. So Solomon says, first of all, you've got to face life as it really is. Stop living in your dream world, hoping that'll make things better, kind of an escapist type of living. Face life as it really is. It's hard. It's tough. It has a lot of injustice and cruelty in it. A lot of bad things about life. Face it as it really is. It is only as you do that that you will begin to find real meaning and purpose in life. But find that that meaning and purpose in life is really based on a relationship with God. Solomon says, fear God and keep his commandments. Basically that means to come into a relationship with God by recognizing who he is. He's a holy God. And he must judge sin and he has judged sin in the person of his son Jesus who died for your sin. Through faith and Christ you can have a personal relationship with God, the Father, and then the pieces of life, of the puzzle of life begin to come together. It is only as you recognize who God is and live your life in light of who he is keeping his commandments living according to his word that you can really enjoy life and find meaning and satisfaction. So that's really the thrust of the book. But in the first couple of chapters Solomon is going to tell us about how people try to find that meaning and purpose in lots of other ways. Some people think that knowing emptiness in my life, that longing to find real meaning in life can be found through lots of knowledge. Some people say it can be found through riches and all that money can buy or it can be found through popularity or fame. It can be found through pleasure some people say, so I'm just going to get all the pleasure and fun out of life that I can. Some people think it can be found in just throwing yourself into your work and becoming a workaholic. And Solomon is going to say, I've done all of that. I've experienced all of that. There's nothing new in the 21st century that you're going to try that hasn't been tried before. So I'm here to tell you that doesn't do it. That doesn't give you meaning and fulfillment. That's the first two chapters. The first 11 verses that we're going to look at today, set us up for that. What Solomon is going to do is he's going to tell us, hey, this is what life is like. The first hard reality of life I want you to come to face with is that there is a sameness, a tedious sameness about life. I'm going to call it today a monotony. Life really is a merry-go-round. And you go round and round and you come back to the same point and see it all again and see it all again. There's a tedious sameness and monotony about life. That's what causes people to start asking the questions. There's got to be more than this, isn't there? How do I really find some meaning and purpose to this life that I'm living and somehow, sometimes, some place you wake up and you start asking those questions? Where is the real purpose and meaning of life? And Solomon's going to say, okay, I'll tell you the way that most people try to find it. That's not where you find it. Now here's the way to find it. But to start out with, he's going to get us back to that point where we start asking the question. Because of that tedious sameness in life, that monotony in life, people start asking the questions. There isn't there more than this. What Solomon does in verses three and four is he gives us the presence of monotony in life. He will introduce us to the very presence of monotony in life. Notice what he says, verse three. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go. But the earth remains forever. Now I want to look first of all at what Solomon says. You see, this is in a form of literature known as Wisdom Literature. Starting with a book of Job and going through the book of Solomon, you got five books that are called Wisdom Literature. And so Solomon is dealing with some of the deepest questions of life, but they're couched in language that sometimes we have to really think about, aha, Wisdom Literature, we have to really think about these things to grasp what is being said. So let's unpack this a little bit. Let's take it apart and see what Solomon is actually saying. Verse three says, what do people gain? The word gain is literally a word as a business term in Solomon's day. It's the word for profit. What does it profit? What do people gain? What is the net profit? In other words, when it's all said and done, what benefit do you get? What's left? In other words, what is the real meaning? What's the real purpose? What do I get out of life? So what is the real gain from all notice? He says all their labors at which they toil under the sun. And when you look at that, you might think he's talking about all your work, your job. And that might be included, but that's not all that's included in the work of labors here. The word labors here. The idea is every activity of life. Everything you put yourself into, everything you do, all of your activities. When it's all said and done, and you begin to measure things up, what did you really get out of that? What was the real profit? What was the real purpose and meaning of that? When it's all said and done, you look back on it. What did you get from that? And he says, I'm talking about all the labors at which they toil under the sun. That's a key phrase in the book of Ecclesiastes. It occurs 29 times in these 12 chapters. So it's a key phrase. The idea is this. Under the sun is basically looking at life from an earthly perspective. It's looking at life from everything you experience down here without looking up, without seeking the real purpose and meaning of life, and looking horizontally up or vertically at a relationship with God. It's just looking horizontally at what's around you, and what you can get out of life around you. Your work, your play, the things here. That's life under the sun. It's an earthly perspective. And what Solomon's going to do throughout this book is he's going to say people who do not center their life around God and do not start answering questions from that perspective. All they've got to work with is what's here. All they've got to work with is what they're experiencing from day to day. Going through life day to day. And so they're living life under the sun. They're living life on this earth with an earthly perspective. Remember his audience. Solomon is writing to a group of people who do not know, do not have a relationship with God. And so he's dealing with what's common about life, where we all live, work, and play, and family, and business, and all the things we occupy ourselves with every day. And so what's the truth about life under the sun? It is that earthly perspective. And he will say, as you do all of your activities in this life from that perspective, what really do you get out of it? What really is the gain of the profit of it? Because verse 4, generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. There is a sameness about our existence here on this like a monotony, a day by day by day tedious sameness. People come, people go. You get friends, those friends move away. Grandparents, move on. Your parents move on. People come, people go. Generations come. Generations go. But there is a sameness to living life on this earth. Life goes on. Now that is the presence of monotony and life. That's what Solomon is actually saying about it. What he's saying is that life under the sun is monotony. There is this tedious routine and sameness about life. Now what does he mean by that? In our terminology today, what Solomon means is this. Life is a merry-go-round. You say, John, why do you use that analogy? I remember a number of years ago when we were living in Indiana and Amy and Ruth were young children. We visited a children's museum in Indianapolis. It is one of the best in the world. And it's fascinating place, especially for kids. They had a huge carousel there. Beautiful carousel, beautifully decorated. And so obviously Amy and Ruth want to ride it. So Amy and Ruth and Jeannie get on the carousel. I'm the one snapping the photographs. I still remember to this day how that went. The first time around, hey, dad! It was so excited. It was so much fun. Second time around. It was kind of that way. Third time around. Fourth, fifth time around. It was kind of a smile. By the sixth or seventh time around, there's just this blank stare ahead waiting for the thing to get done. What Solomon is saying is that in everything in this life, if that's the only perspective you've got, the noonist wears off. And you suddenly get into this routine, this tedious sameness of just going through it day after day after day. It is that way with your job. You get a new job. You throw yourself into that. It's exciting at first. It's fun. It's challenging two months in. You're getting used to it. Two years in. You're showing up. You're cranking out the work. It's a routine. It's the same thing. Day in, day out. That way with the house. Get a new house out. It's so great. Wonderful. Fresh new smell. Everything looks great. No blemishes in this new house. Six months later, you already got the clutter building up and the dirt in the corners and stuff. The noonist has worn off and a few years into it and you're used to that house. It's just the house. That's what it is with your car. You buy a new car. Remember the first time the new car got dirty? You couldn't wait to get home to wash it. It had to maintain that pristine look. And then you remember the first scratch on that new car? Oh, that's a terrible feeling, isn't it? You keep that same car five, six years. It's got all kinds of scratches. It's got a permanent display of bugs on the front bumper. It's got a hole or two in it. Some rust starting to develop. So you don't even notice those things anymore. You just go out and kick it and get in and hope it starts. And that's it. Routine, sameness, the life. That's what it is with clothes. You buy some new clothes? Wow. They're fun to wear that first or second time. You kind of like the way you look at them. Kind of want other people to see in them. Six months after you've had them. Gentlemen, this is why your wife tells you I have nothing to wear. And you go look in the closet and there are all kinds of things to wear in there. But the newness has worn off. And those clothes are no longer exciting anymore. It's the way it can be in marriage. You get married. It's exciting. It's fun to be together finally, to be husband and wife, to launch out in life together with such a romantic fresh love. Five years into it. Ten, fifteen years into it. Get up in the morning, a couple of grunts for each other, you know, behind newspaper and cup of coffee. Get home at night hard to say a word to each other. You've gotten used to each other. Now, I'm not saying that's what it should be. But that is one of the hard realities of life. Unless there is another perspective to bring to bear in our lives, that is the way life will work for you. Everything about your life will start out with newness, excitement, fresh, ardor and fervency. And then you'll get used to it. And before long, you're into a routine, a tedious sameness, a monotony about life. That's not right necessarily about your car, your house, or your marriage. But it is what happens unless there is another perspective that is life as it really is. Solomon's going to show us eventually how to correct that. But remember, first of all, he's going to knock the props out from under us, our dream world, and make us face life as it really is. And that's the way life really is. So life is a merry go round. That's the presence of monotony in life. Solomon then introduces us to three examples of monotony in life versus five through seven. They're all examples taken from nature. The first one is the sun, verse five. The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises. There's something almost comical about the way Solomon talks about this. He's not using specifically scientific language. We know technically the sun doesn't rise. Sun doesn't set. Sun is stationary. The earth moves. But this is the language of what we observe. The sun rises, sun sets. Turn to weather channel on. They say the same thing. They're supposed to know. The sun rises, sun sets. And it's almost humorous to think of this. The sun comes up in the morning and it goes across the sky. It sets on the horizon. And then it's gasping and panning to get back to where it started. And starts again. It rises. It crosses the sky. It sets. And then it's gasping and panning to get back to where it started again. There's this tedious monotonous sameness of life that even the sun in our observation of it experiences. Second example. Solomon uses is the wind. In verse six, the wind blows to the south and turns to the north. Round and round. It goes. Ever returning on its course. Again, what's the weather channel? I've told you my favorite channel. It's so exciting. Every day, same thing. A few little blips on the radar screen, technically. Every now and then, you know, the storm's here and there. But basically same thing. Jet streams across the country. Maybe a little higher today, a little lower tomorrow. But it's coming across the country. Like it always has. The wind's blowing and it blows from west to east. And when it goes the other way, we got some trouble coming or starts going around and around. But the wind's always blowing, especially on the hall's ridge road. It's always blowing. But the wind blows and it goes and then it comes back and tomorrow there'll be more wind coming and never ending wind. The third example he uses from the world of God's creation is the water cycle. Verse seven. All streams flow into the sea yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. It's a beautiful poetic description of the water cycle. Where the streams go, streams eventually flow into the ocean. But does the ocean keep filling up and get bigger and bigger and bigger? No, no, no. Because what happens to that water? It evaporates. And it forms droplets in clouds and those clouds move over land. And that water is dropped on the land in West Virginia. It starts out as a creek. And then it becomes a stream and then it becomes a river and then it goes into the ocean and then it evaporates again over and over and over again. Tidious, sameness, monotony of life. And what Solomon is saying is this. I want you to think deeply about life. Anyone who has thought deeply about life has at some point in his or her life woken up in the morning and said, there's got to be more than this. I get up in the morning, I eat breakfast, I go to work, I come home, I eat dinner, I put her around the house, I watch a little TV, I go to bed. I get up the next morning, I eat breakfast, I go to work, I eat, you see. And at some point you begin to ask yourself the question, is there more to life than this? Certainly there's got to be something more than this. I know those of you who are so spiritually minded in trying to give me that look this morning, you're thinking, John, that's not the way I feel. Come on, be real, you know that you have in your weaker moments maybe felt that Tidious sameness about life. And especially people who live only with an earthly perspective wake up lots of mornings feeling that emptiness, that longing to be able to discover something different to break out of the routine, tedious sameness of life. Now Solomon is going to tell us how correct that is going to get there. But first of all he's going to make us face it head on and feel that longing very deeply before he tells us, okay, this now that you really feel what I'm talking about this, this is how not to fill it, fill it, and this is how to fill it. What is the result of this monotony in life? I love what Solomon does in verses 8 through 11, he kind of ties together these examples he's given us and the the idea of the presence of monotony in life and he says, okay, this is what it will do to your soul. This is what it does to the inside of you. This is what it does to your life. These are the results of this ever present monotony of life. Four things it will result in in your heart and soul. Number one is life becomes worrisome. Life becomes worrisome. Look at it in verse 8. He says, all things are worrisome more than one can say. All things are worrisome more than one can say. And as you tear the December page off of the calendar and you find yourself thinking next year's got to be better. And I'm going to try to make it better. That's what New Year's resolutions are all about, you know. That's all they are is an attempt to do a little better this year than I did last year make my life a little better than I did last year. And with a side frustration, you throw December in the calendar and you think maybe next year, maybe next year. I can break out of this routine. This tedious sameness of life. What happens by February or for some of us by January 10th. You're back into the routine, aren't you? Same tedious monotonous routine of life. And you get tired of the grind. You sink into bed at night wishing you could just escape it all. Life becomes worrisome and Solomon puts it in words for us. All things are worrisome more than one can say. I can't even describe what I'm feeling. Solomon's got the words for it here. Maybe you felt that way some nights when you lie down in bed or you get up in the morning to face another day. So what Solomon's talking about. Life becomes worrisome. Second result of the monotonous routine of life is this. We are never satisfied. You see, we have this maddening pursuit and desire to make life work for everything we try. We're never satisfied until we get to the right answer. The Solomon's going to introduce us to later. We're never satisfied. He says that this way in verse 8. The eye never has enough of seeing nor the ear. It's filled of hearing. Just two examples of the fact that we're never satisfied with the things we try to do to to save, to fill that emptiness, to put some kind of sav over the hurt in our hearts. We're never really satisfied with our own attempts to make life work. The eye can't see enough and the ear can't hear enough. You see a lot of people try to solve this monotonous life by seeing more. So I'm going to go somewhere. I'm going to go on vacation. I'm going to go see the sights. I'm going to go see the world. I'm going to go see the national parks or I'm going to go see the amusement park or whatever. I'm going to see some stuff. You will never see enough. The eye never tires of seeing. God's built within the human heart. I believe a desire to explore his creation. Solomon told us that also in Proverbs 25. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the honor of kings to search it out. God has put within the human heart and mind and breath the desire to discover God's creation. But you cannot ever discover enough. The far reaches of space, the depths of the ocean floor. We want to find out more. The intricacies of the cell just a month or so ago at a national. I think it was a physics convention of some kind. They announced scientists announced they had found what they called a God particle. That subatomic bit of every piece of stuff that gives everything the property of weight and gravity matter. Even smaller than the parts of the atom. Fascinating. They call it the God particle. To me that speaks of the intense longing to find out what really does make life work. Even physically the body matter what does really make it work. And we're going to call it the God particle. I think that is a very telling designation. The eye never sees enough. You can never explore enough. You can never see enough. That should an example of the attempt to fill that longing and void in your heart that's created by the routine monotonous existence of life. But he also says the ear can never hear enough. The ears never full of hearing. Some of you have lived through the process of trying to make this verse untrue. Some of you can hear the voice of the victim in your house. I got a few nods in the first service. I see a few nods. I don't remember that. That was an amazing piece of equipment that allowed you to hear people speak or sing that had recorded that. We got the big stereo that really filled the whole room almost the box itself almost filled the whole room. Remember those things. The huge box record players. And then amazingly enough it wasn't enough to hear music in the living room. We wanted to hear it everywhere in the house. And so we discovered tape recorders. And I can remember when my kids were little the most exciting if they could get is their own personal tape recorder. Now I can listen to cassette tapes in my room not just in the in the living room. Wow. What a great advance. But the ear is never filled with hearing. It's not enough to be able to listen in the living room and our bedroom or the kitchen. We figured out a way to put it in the car. So now I can listen in the car. Cool. And then we found ways to get iPods and MP3 players so that we can listen to wherever we are. Whether we're shopping or jogging or working or wherever we are. We can always be listening. And you don't even have to go to the store to buy it. Download it on your computer and get it on your smartphone. We never tire of hearing more. More noise more noise more noise. Never get enough. That's just a symptom of the longing of the heart to find something that fills the void and answers the question. Isn't there more? Isn't there more to life than this? It's all coming out of that tedious sameness, the monotony of life, the routine of life that forces you to ask those questions. Solomon says what that will result in in your soul. His life becomes worrisome. We are never satisfied. Third thing is that no new experiences will satisfy. And I put new in quotations because as Solomon will tell us there's really nothing new. But no new experiences that we try will satisfy either. Look at it in verse 9. What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say look there's something new? It was here already long ago. It was here before our time. Now he's not discounting new discoveries. He's not discounting the fact that people will discover new things about God's creation. That's not his point. That's not even what he's talking about. He's talking about the effort to fill the void and emptiness in your life. When the monotonous routine of life causes you to start asking deeper questions about like is there some real meaning beyond this? Is there real purpose beyond this? And you want to try something new to try to fill that what Solomon say and say. It's all been tried. It's all been tried. Technology may make it look a little different today than it did 2,000, 3,000 years ago. Solomon was writing almost 3,000 years ago. And he's going to tell us in the next couple of chapters all the things he tried to fill the void to fill that emptiness to break out of the routine and do something new that will really be satisfying. And it's going to sound an awful lot like things we try today. There's nothing new that can really satisfy. So to break them and not need people to try or do something new, I want to do something different. I want to break away from them and not leave life. So a new job will do it, a new house will do it, a new car will do it, a new mate will do it, a new lifestyle will do it. Something different. So we're reading just the other day in the USA today about the latest craze out west is what's called steam punks. You're about steam punks. Because a lot of these people are in Silicon Valley. They're upwardly mobile. They're very high income type people. And they function in the world that we live in during the day. And then they go home in the evening and they revert back to the 1800s. They dress in a Victorian type of dress. They go back to the kind of inventions that a Jewels burn and HG Wells would talk about in their science fiction novels of that era. And they have parties where they dress in and balls where they dress in that kind of apparel from the 1800s and do the kind of dances that were done then the ballroom dancing and so forth. It was a real, it was hilarious to read that. It's an escapist mechanism like so many other things, but it's new. It's different. Has anybody tried that before? Yeah, in the 1800s. They tried that. Yeah, they sure did. So, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. Whatever you try to fill that void in your life, it's been tried before. That's what Solomon saying. There is no new experience that will satisfy you. You say, well, I'll do something to put some excitement in my life. I love to go on vacation with my family. I think vacations are wonderful to kind of give you a break from some of this routine. But what I find is a lot of people think that will solve the deeper issues that are caused by the routines. I have a question we're talking about today. I'm a people watcher. And so when I'm on vacation, a lot of times I'm watching other people. It's not all I do, but you know, observe other people. You know, it's very interesting to watch people who are putting all their eggs in the one basket that if I come on a vacation, I'm going to be happy. So, let's get the family together and let's go do something fun. Let's go see national monuments. Let's go out west and travel. Let's go to an amusement park. Let's go to a resort. It's really nice. And you know what I observe? I observe the fact they brought their sin natures with them and they're living just like they were back home. They're upset with each other. They're yelling their kids over the table. They're all upset mad. And I just frustrated and... Well, vacation hadn't done them any good. Change of location, nice setting, fun experiences. And they've still got the knowing emptiness inside. There's no new experience that will solve these issues for you. That will answer these deeper questions for you. Solomon says it's all been tried. Fourth result of this monotony in life is verse 11. We don't learn from experience. We do not learn from experience. Solomon says no one remembers the former generations and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. Pretty depressing thought. But it is true. If you were to ask me to name my great, great grandparents, I couldn't do it. Now, I've got genealogical records and if I looked them up, I could get their name. I don't know anything about them. They're family. Now, the word here, former generations is literally just the word former. And so those who study, who use the asses and write on it are different. So, if you're a professor, whether I talk about former things or former people, generations as the NIV translates it. It can be either. It's just the former. Former is all really Solomon is saying. The reason why things look new and exciting and fresh and fun to us is because we don't remember the past. We do not learn from other people's experiments in those same things. The reason why we think we have new knowledge is because we have not learned from previous generations. So, Solomon is saying we do not learn from experience. Again, he's not eliminating new discoveries. He's talking about attempts to find new meaning in life. We do not learn from other people's experience. They tried it. Didn't work for them. But we think it'll work for us because we do not learn from experience. Even our own experiences sometimes. What Solomon is saying in these first 11 verses as he thrusts us into this book is that life from an earthly perspective. If that's all the tools you're going to use to make sense of life and fit the pieces of the puzzle of life together. Life under the sun, life from that perspective is frustrating, unsatisfying. It is a grind. It is monotonous. And you're going to wake up someday asking yourself the question, isn't there more to life than this? Come on. There's got to be some greater purpose in life than going through the same routine every day. On account of three, why don't we all just give a collective sigh of frustration? One, two, three. You say, John, what are you doing? I come to church to get edified and built up, not depressed. I realize probably the most depressing message you've ever heard. But it's real, isn't it? That's what life really is from an earthly perspective. If you have no other input from above, from God in His Word, that's what life is. Now, remember again, what Solomon is doing. He's knocking the props out from under us and he's saying, I want you to deal with the deep questions that you ask yourself in the quiet moments of frustration with the monotony and sameness of life. Is life just this dreary rhythm of activity ceaselessly day after day? Isn't there more than that? There's got to be more than that. Solomon's setting us up so that we will then look at the various ways people try to answer that question. I'm going to get all knowledge I can get, get all the money I can get, enjoy all the pleasure I can enjoy. I want to be famous, popular, well known, or I'm just going to pour myself into work. And he's going to conclude that will leave you just as empty. You'll get to the end of all of those roads and you'll wake up the next morning and you'll be asking the same question. Is there more than this? It's got to be more purpose and meaning to life than this. Now, I'm not going to leave you hanging right there because there is purpose and meaning in life. And as Solomon will reinforce, especially at the end of every major section of the book, it's found in your relationship with God. It is only as you center your life around him that you will find the true purpose and meaning for which you were created by him. And the Bible makes it clear that the only way to have that relationship with God is through the provision he has made through Jesus Christ his son who came and died for our sin. Took the punishment for our sin that we deserve so that we by faith in Christ might enter into a relationship with God as our Father. And the one who then begins to give us purpose and meaning in life. I want to ask you this morning, are you caught in the clutches of monotony? Are you tired of the merry go round? Are you tired of waking up and asking another day? Isn't there something more to life than this? You tired of that? Your life can find meaning and fulfillment. If you begin, if you center your life on a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, doesn't mean that all your problems are going to vanish, doesn't mean that things are always going to be fresh and exciting and new. Life is life and where the face of it really is, it's hard, it's tough, there is a lot of monotony, a lot of routine, a lot of the tedious sameness for everybody. But knowing Christ and walking with God day by day can give you real purpose and fulfillment and meaning in your life. What you bow with me in prayer. Father, thank you that you have given us not just the answers, but you've helped us to understand the questions. You've helped us to understand what it is that's knowing at us. What causes it? Why is it there? Lord, as we've taken a look at that this morning, I pray that you would help all of us to come to grips with how we are seeking to answer that question in our lives right now. Lord, I pray for those that may be here without Jesus today, without Christ, never having established a personal relationship with you and made you the center of their lives. Lord, I pray for them today to realize life will never really make sense until they understand it from your perspective, until they come to Christ as Savior. Lord, I pray for believers here today, for those who have made that commitment to Christ, but subtly, maybe slowly, we have gravitated back to those old ways of trying to fill our lives with purpose and meaning. And we're doing the same things that unbelievers do, trying to give our life meaning and purpose with all the ways that will never do it. Father, help us to get back on target, help us to get back in focus with you at the center of our hearts, minds and lives, and our desire to glorify you and live for you. Help us, Father, not to get sidetracked with all that the world throws at us at the fine meaning and fulfillment in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.