Ecclesiastes 11:8
However many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all. But let them remember the days of darkness, for there will be many. Everything to come is meaningless.

Depressing, isn’t it? Ecclesiastes is not the happiest book of the Bible to read through, simply because the author repeats that “everything is meaningless” while we live “under the sun.”

But indeed, everything purely worldly (“under the sun”) is ultimately meaningless–“in a hundred years, what will it matter?” as my mom always says when I get upset about something breaking or not going right. Without God and a grand divine plan to give life an overarching meaning and goal, life can seem a bit pointless. After a while, we get tired of searching for pleasure, power, and wealth; most of us start looking for a deeper meaning during our “days of darkness.” And, if we’re not looking toward God, we simply won’t find it.

This is why the author of Ecclesiastes (possibly King Solomon) keeps insisting that “everything is meaningless”–because life without divine direction leaves us ultimately wishing for something more, something only God can give us.

Eccl 3:9-11
9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

In this passage, contained within the rather sobering and depressing early chapters of Ecclesiastes, we see the writer (who may or may not have been King Solomon) wonder about all the worldly “toil” we humans do. It all feels meaningless–a word repeated throughout the early chapters. What good is our work and its products when we won’t get to enjoy them forever?

The “burden” God has laid on the human race is simply mortality itself–we were made for eternity, as v. 11 states, but we only live a short time. We don’t get to enjoy the “beautiful” things, either of the natural world or of man’s world, for very long. And we don’t live long enough to “fathom what God has done from beginning to end,” either.

So what’s it all for? Where’s the meaning? Why are we even living? This cry for meaning is not only found in the Book of Ecclesiastes, but throughout the world; we all want to know what life is about. Thousands of books, dramas, poetry, art objects, and songs have been created about the meaning of life, especially looking for meaning through worldly things.

But, as the writer of Ecclesiastes has found out over time, trying to find life’s meaning through the quest for power, the pursuit of pleasure, the accumulation of money or friends, etc., is in itself meaningless and does not give any lasting joy. These are all worldly things, just as ephemeral as we are. But there is an eternal One who can bring meaning to our lives–God. Living for His glory, bringing comfort and strength to others in His name, and seeking to lead a moral and just life, brings a more global and eternal understanding of humanity. Being Christian, knowing we are saved by faith, knowing how short a time we have, makes us want to use that short time to share our blessings with others.

Ecclesiastes 11:1-2
1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again. 2 Give portions to seven, yes to eight, for you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.

I was very, very confused when I first read these two verses. Throw bread on the water and it’ll come back to you? Ew, mold. Give portions to seven, and even eight? Does this mean I donate a bunch of stuff to Goodwill and work at the soup kitchens every Saturday?

Well, not exactly. Here, the Teacher (the writer of Ecclesiastes, who might or might not have been Solomon), lays out a little business sense in the middle of his text.

#1: Take Calculated Risks to Grow Yourself

“Cast your bread upon the waters,” Biblically speaking, referred to merchants shipping their grain by boat. It was a dangerous and risky thing to do because boats could easily sink–but those merchants who risked it often were much more successful than those who did not risk anything, because they were willing to try. In our own lives, the times we’ve risked much of our own efforts in order to gain something even more valuable (a friend, a new love, a job, an accomplishment, etc.) often stand out in our minds as the times we truly understood our own mettle. Not to mention that it was a thrill to take a chance, and that it possibly led to more happiness.

As a habitual non-risk-taker by nature, I try to make sure that the thing I desire most is just about in my hand before I reach to grab it. But the few times I’ve really launched myself out and lunged for something, something I didn’t want to wait any longer to grab, I’ve surprised myself with unexpected passion and tenacity, as I strove to hold on to what I wanted. Yes, sometimes I had to let what I wanted go; sometimes it slipped from my hand. But I was better for having reached, and that’s what the Teacher is referring to here.

#2: Try Everything You Can–Don’t Limit Yourself

The second verse is just as hard to fathom. Who or what are we supposed to give portions to? Well, in fact, this relates back to good business practice as well. We have to try out many different ventures, “diversify our efforts,” you might say, because you never know which one will work.

Think about it–we don’t just fill out one college application, or one job application. We fill out many at a time, in order to get a broader “net” and possibly a better chance of getting a hit. If we pin all our hopes to one idea and that idea sinks, what happens to us? We are more easily discouraged and start to falter in taking risks. By contrast, if we have many ideas and no big hopes pinned to any of them, we can move on from the failure of one and maintain faith that one or more of the other ideas will yet bear fruit.

Where Does Faith Come Into This Picture?

Speaking of faith: “Where is the faith in this passage?”, you might be asking. “This sounds more like life advice and business advice rather than Christian living advice.”

Oh, but it is Christian living. The more we take risks and diversify our efforts, the more we learn to stop fearing and start trusting God. When situations are literally and figuratively out of our hands, we learn to place our trust in God and lift up our concerns to Him.

When we have no way of influencing the outcome of something in our lives, we can become more comfortable with praying about it and knowing that God has a perfect plan for everything. Risk helps test our faith, and broadened efforts helps reduce risk as well as develop our abilities in areas we might not have trusted otherwise. We begin to live a more balanced (and more faith-based) life as a result.