Is there ever enough?
Let’s look at Ecclesiastes 5:10-12.
10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. 11 When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes? 12 Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.
The things we want in life are usually good things. There is nothing evil about money, food, sex, wine, pleasure, etc. God made these things good for us to enjoy. The Teacher has written thousands of years ago a lesson that we need to learn more right now and we tend to think of it as the law of diminishing returns.
Basically, it’s like saying we’re looking for the next hit. We’re looking for something that will satisfy us because we do not so much want the thing itself, but we want the feeling or satisfaction that the thing gives us. The thing is often a means to an end.
In our culture of loose sexuality for instance, men especially jump around from girl to girl, not because they care about the girls they are with, but they hope that with a new lover, that they will get that high again that they desire. When the high starts to fade, the relationship fades. This can also happen in our relationships with the idea of “falling in love” where we think once the emotion fades away from the relationship, the relationship has died.
In the case of money, it’s the saying that has been attributed to Rockefeller when asked how much money was enough and was told just a little bit more. Again, the sin is not the money itself. A person can have a lot of money and not be in sin. It is when a lot of money has a person that the person is then in sin.
The Teacher instead praises the man who we look down on as not having anything. The man who simply does his job and rests has a sweet sleep. He has done his job. The man with the most goods can be concerned in insecurity. Does he have enough? What if someone takes what he has?
I think it was Chesterton who said that while there are many things to enjoy in this life, only two things can provide us with unending joy. Those are a person and a story. (Hence, my studies into video games and stories.) In an ideal marriage, it is eternally diving into the ocean of one person instead of the shallow pools of many waters that is meant to bring us constant joy.
That is also a pointer to the triune God that we are meant to eternally dive into one day. That is a being who there is no limit to what He can do to satisfy us and we will always be caught up in His story. Other things are good and we should enjoy them, but enjoy them as pointers to God.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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