The following words in scriptures have been criticized and avoided by many as negative. When you rethink it into the right perspective you can fully see the realistic and intellectually sound reasoning that leads to understanding what life is really all about.
Many people feel dissatisfied with life because they work hard, pursue success, buy things, seek pleasure, and still feel something is missing. Solomon understood this struggle deeply. As king, he had wealth, wisdom, power, accomplishments, houses, gardens, servants, music, and every pleasure available to him. Yet after looking honestly at all he had achieved, he wrote, “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, KJV). The word vanity points to something like vapor or breath—something that appears for a moment but cannot be held onto.
Noah Websters 1828 definition of vanity reads:
VAN’ITY, noun [Latin vanitas, from vanus, vain.]
1. Emptiness; want of substance to satisfy desire; uncertainty; inanity.
2. Fruitless desire or endeavor.
3. Trifling labor that produces no good.
4. Emptiness; untruth
5. Empty pleasure; vain pursuit; idle show; unsubstantial enjoyment.
6. Ostentation; arrogance.
7. Inflation of mind upon slight grounds; empty pride, inspired by an overweening conceit of one’s personal attainments or decorations. Fops cannot be cured of their vanity
Vanity is the food of fools.
Solomon first saw that earthly pleasure does not permanently satisfy the human heart. He said, “I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:1, KJV). He tried laughter, entertainment, possessions, great building projects, riches, and accomplishments, but none could give his soul lasting purpose. He confessed, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought… and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 2:11, KJV). The problem was not that work, joy, or possessions are always evil; it was that they cannot bear the weight of being a person’s ultimate reason for living.
Solomon also saw that life under the sun can feel unfair and uncertain. Wise people and foolish people both die. The rich and poor both face trouble. A person may labor all his life and leave what he earned to someone else: “Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me” (Ecclesiastes 2:18, KJV). This reality can create deep dissatisfaction because human beings want control, permanence, and justice, yet life often reminds us that we are limited. Solomon wrote, “For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 2:22, KJV).
Solomon’s conclusion was not that life has no value, but that life apart from God has no lasting foundation. After examining wisdom, pleasure, work, wealth, and human achievement, he ended with these words: “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13, KJV). Dissatisfaction can become a warning that the heart is trying to find eternal fulfillment in temporary things. God alone gives life its true meaning, and He calls people to live with reverence, obedience, gratitude, and the understanding that every part of life will one day be brought before Him: “For God shall bring every work into judgment” (Ecclesiastes 12:14, KJV).
These are the hard places of scripture; many do not like to go here because they feel it is too negative or condemning, on the contrary these are the spiritual equalizers. A feel good, all smiles religion is a just a fairy tale and a trials and tribulation life of “fighting the devil” is no better.
Neither of these have any weight in the arena of real life, the balance comes when you are spiritually mature, then you understand the reason of things, and you don’t put more emphasis on something than it deserves. This is when you have your priorities in order, and you walk humbly through this life realizing that there is nothing here that will bring you any satisfaction.
Inordinate affection can be defined as trying to get something out of a person, a career, an achievement, or even just an image you have of yourself in your head. Solomon had more than this, he had the real thing and he tried it all. There was a reason he was the wisest man that ever lived, he told it like it is: don’t look for it in anything in this life, it’s just not here.
