Purpose? Or Person?

This morning's sermon was entitled simply, Purpose, and started a series about Life's Missing Ingredients. By implication, "purpose" is one of the things that is missing from the lives of many (most?) people. Supposedly, this is the message of the book of Ecclesiastes. While there was much in the sermon with which I could almost agree, and which seemed to be nearly correct, by the end I was left with a deep sense of something very wrong; that in coming somewhat close at many points the overall point was seriously missed. This post is really me thinking out loud, trying to ascertain just where that troubling sense comes from. No doubt in my attempts to get closer, I too will miss the point in some important way, but perhaps that is the way of all theological reflection.

I took the opportunity this afternoon to look through Ecclesiastes again. In doing so, it seemed to me that the book records the Preacher's attempt to determine just what is one's purpose in this life, particularly in the recognition that many ostensible purposes seem in the end to be simply pointless: vanity and striving after wind. Ultimately, even this passionate pursuit of meaning and purpose is in its own self a vanity — a vexatious and burdensome task — because "man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, 'I know,' he cannot discover" (Eccl. 8:17) Indeed, even though God "has made everything appropriate in its time, He has also set eternity in their heart, so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." (Eccl. 3:11)

The problem, it seems, it not that man's life is missing purpose, but rather that man (particularly when man has an abundance, and the leisure to pursue such thinking) believes that it is in fulfilling some "purpose" he will find satisfaction in his life; yet all such purposes in the end fail to satisfy. Instead, the Preacher says:

I know that there is nothing better from them than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor — it is the gift of God.

Eccl. 3:12,13

Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one's labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward. Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. For he will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of his heart.

Eccl. 5:18-20

Go then, eat your bread in happiness, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works. Let your clothes be white all the time, and let no oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life, and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, verily, do it with all your might.

Eccl. 9:7-10a

Early in the sermon, a metaphor of moving dirt from end of the camp to the other was introduced. Apparently, it was a common psychological pressure tactic to have prisoners of war spend many days, weeks, even months, performing some large physical undertaking — such as digging a huge hole at one end of the camp, and transporting the dirt to a huge pile at the other end — only then to have the prisoners set to the huge task of precisely reversing the task they had completed. This drove many prisoners insane, as it had no purpose.

It struck me that this will only drive those mad who believe that it is necessary or important to be able to see the purpose in what one does. The stronger the belief that one's work must have a purpose, and that in that purpose one finds what is important to life, the more devastating will be the discover that one's labor had, in actual fact, no purpose at all. But one who is able to enjoy his life in the midst of his labor, however purposeful or purposeless it may appear, will not suffer such devastation of soul.

Rather than suggesting that we must find fulfillment in the purpose of our work, I find that the Bible generally speaks of finding fulfillment in walking by faith — trusting in God who may or may not choose to reveal to us the purpose or purposes to which He has assigned us. As the Preacher in Ecclesiastes says, God has already given us our life, and to enjoy the life which God has given to us is our reward &mdash or rather, I think, part of our reward.

Augustine, I think, got it right. The unsettled feeling that many of us experience is not, in the final analysis a problem with a lack of purpose, but of seeking ultimate fulfillment in the wrong thing entirely. "Thou has made us for thyself," Augustine said, "and our souls are restless until they find their rest in Thee." John Piper, too, has it correct. In considering the first question in the Westminster shorter catechism, "What is the chief end of man?", Piper answers this way: "The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever." Indeed, Piper says, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desire of your heart.

In the end, it is not so much the case that we were made for a purpose, as it is that we were made for a Person. And ultimately our inheritance, our reward, is that Person Himself.