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My Bible reading today was Ecclesiastes 1–6. What struck me is Solomon’s seemingly pessimistic perspective that there is nothing new under the sun, that so much of life is futile, and that ultimately we all end up in the same place.

But I think the phrase “under the sun” is important to understanding what Solomon is saying. He is looking at life as we experience it here—within the boundaries of this world. Generations come and go. People work, accumulate, accomplish, grow old, and die. The next generation comes along and does much the same thing. From that perspective, there really is nothing new under the sun.

But for me—and maybe I am being too simplistic compared to Solomon—I see the life set before every individual as his or her own experience. Whereas nothing is really new under the sun, it is new to us. We have been given the opportunity to experience and discover life for ourselves.

To me, that connects with Ecclesiastes 3:11:

“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.”

God has put something within us that reaches beyond what we can see “under the sun.” We sense eternity, yet we cannot figure out everything God is doing from beginning to end. We experience only our little piece of it.

So the question becomes: What will we do with the eternity God has set in our hearts?

Will we spend our lives trying to find lasting satisfaction in things under the sun that were never capable of giving it? Or will we discover God in the midst of our lives and attribute the goodness we experience to Him?

I think Solomon points us toward what brings lasting satisfaction and enjoyment to our lives. It isn’t that we finally figure everything out. Rather, we learn how to live within that tension. In Ecclesiastes 2:24–25 he writes:

“There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?”

Gratefulness seems to be the difference.

The food is still food. Work is still work. Life is still temporary. We still grow old, and eventually we still die. But now we recognize the hand from which these things have come.

Solomon can sound hopeless when he describes the endless cycle of life under the sun. At one point he even describes the miscarriage who never experienced life as being better off than the person who possesses much but cannot enjoy it. Yet in the middle of all of this, he repeatedly illuminates how we actually can experience satisfaction and pleasure in this life: receive it as a gift from God.

Maybe that is part of the lesson of Ecclesiastes. We cannot make temporary things eternal. We cannot control the whole story. We cannot understand everything God has done “from the beginning even to the end.” But we can receive the life He has given us, discover its goodness, enjoy His gifts, and recognize the Giver behind them.

Takeaway: Give God the credit—the glory—for all the good things you have and are experiencing in life, not the least of which is your ability to discover Him and to be grateful for what He has given you. Enjoy the gifts God gives you, but don’t ask those gifts to give you what only God can give.