Brushes and Paints.

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher.

"Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless."

-Ecclesiastes 1:2

I found this particular verse by reading a devotional put together by Martin Luther. At first it comes across as incredibly emotionally driven and ridiculous; and Solomon's intentions were just that, he was basically venting when he wrote it and came to his realization through his rant.

This guy owned everything. like, literally.

He had slaves, entire vineyards, basically all of Jerusalem... no jokes, if this guy wanted it, he could have it within a day. He goes to the extent of saying "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure" in 2:10

So obviously, the tangible things: Food, wives, followers, palaces, the grand typical wants of the times. But atop that, he had an immense amount of self-derived wisdom. He soaked up every bit of everything he could and took it to heart. He was a ridiculously intelligent and wise man. On paper, this cat pretty much had it made... He lived the American dream by starting from scratch and building himself up using his own sweat and blood.

and then the next verse comes.

"Yet when i surveyed all that my hands had done and what i had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."

I think in a conceited sort of way, I deep down consider myself to be relatively wise for my age. I've put myself through a substantial amount of unnecessary problems that I've gathered wisdom through. But it goes on to say that unless the wisdom in me isn't of God, it's meaningless. "like chasing after wind" it says.

Solomon basically speaks down to people like himself who live like they're living on this place forever. He poses the question of "why live like this?" Why live to form some image, to build up some massive stage to stand upon, when in an incredibly minuscule time frame you'll be gone from this place.

An image is something that everyone has, whether they like it or not. It's just been recently brought to my attention that my image has absolutely nothing to do with me, other than the fact that my body wears it. I'm to be sculpted. I'm the blank canvas that God paints.

I have a say in the matter obviously, but I'm making a pact right now to work on handing over the brushes and paints.