So my church is currently studying through the book of Ecclesiastes, and the message yesterday morning was taken from chapter 2. To prepare for each Sunday at church, I read the passage to be covered on Saturday morning. As I read through Ecclesiastes 2, something popped off the page to me. In verses 4-8, Solomon was enumerating some of his accomplishments and possessions (which were a lot). What impacted me was the number of times that he used the word “myself”.
“I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.”
Fast-forward to this morning. In preparation for a class I’m taking, I was studying through 1 Chronicles 28. In verses 9-10, King David is giving direction to his son and successor, Solomon, whom God had chosen to build His temple.
“And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek Him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, he will cast you off forever. Be careful now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary; be strong and do it.”
As you can see from these verses, David is commanding his son to keep God front and center. I was looking up the Hebrew definitions of the various directives that David gave Solomon. The definition of “serve” stopped me in my tracks. Serve <ʿāḇaḏ> in Hebrew, is an imperative (a command, not a suggestion), and it means – to labor for another. What a contrast to what I observed in how Solomon listed off his accomplishments and possessions in Ecclesiastes 2 with the repeated use of “for myself”.
In 1 Chronicles 28, King David commanded his son to make serving God his motivation and focus. If you read Ecclesiastes 2 in its entirety, you will also see Solomon using a couple of other words/phrases repeatedly – “vanity” and “a striving after the wind”. In choosing to do what he did for “himself”, He was discovering the utter emptiness that worldly accomplishments and possessions hold apart from God.
In verses 24-25, Solomon summed things up very concisely when he wrote, “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from Him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” That last sentence really foreshadowed Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:24-33, when He said, “No one can serve two masters” and “…seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Let me close by saying that I stand in awe of how God ordered my footsteps. Long ago He put in place the two different sources that would come before my eyes within a day of each other; each reinforcing the same principle – serve God, not self. Why did God do that? For my good and for His glory. He desires for me to have joy to the full, and He knows that fullness of joy and true satisfaction come only in proportion to me choosing to shift my focus away from serving myself, and onto serving Him alone.