The Son Also Rises

Hey there, and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading titled The Sun Also Rises was written by Tim Gustafson. Ernest Hemingway's first full-length novel features hard-drinking friends who've recently endured World War I. They bear the literal and figurative scars of the war's devastation and try to cope with it via parties, grand adventures, and sleeping around.

Always, there is alcohol to numb the pain. No one is happy. Hemingway's title for his book, The Sun Also Rises, comes straight from the pages of Ecclesiastes. In Ecclesiastes, King Solomon refers to himself as the teacher. He observes, everything is meaningless and asks, what do people gain from all their labors? Solomon saw how the sun rises and sets, the wind blows to and fro, the rivers flow endlessly into a never satisfied sea.

Ultimately, all is forgotten. Both Hemingway and Ecclesiastes confront us with the stark futility of living for this life only. Solomon, however, weaves bright hints of the divine into his book. There is permanence and real hope. Ecclesiastes shows us as we truly are, but it also shows God as He is.

Everything God does will endure forever, said Solomon in chapter 3. And therein lies our great hope, for God has given us the gift of His Son, Jesus. Apart from God, we're adrift in an endless, never satisfied sea. Through His risen Son, Jesus, we're reconciled to Him, and we discover our meaning, value, and purpose.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verses 1 through 11. The words of the teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem, meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher, utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north. Round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from, there they return again. All things are worrisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, look, this is something new. It was here already long ago.

It was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations. And even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. Let's pray. Father apart from you, life can seem so overwhelming and just utterly meaningless. Help us to find our complete fulfillment and value and purpose in you and you alone. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening today. I'm Steven Taber and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.