Ecclesiastes 1:13 English Standard Version (ESV) And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
It was King Solomon’s wish that he should be granted wisdom to rule his people. God honored Solomon’s request by granting him more wisdom than any human could possibly attain on their own.
Solomon’s Israel was elevated to the highest level of human achievements in history if we were to study them with the right focus on treaties, trade, and common good for everyone. No king ever achieved such lofty goals since.
Yet when it came down to discovering everything under the sun by wisdom it made Solomon unhappy. Wisdom does not achieve happiness.
If we were to take a survey of what people do to achieve happiness, we would discover a wide range of activities and attitudes about happiness. In the general sense happiness is fleeting. What makes one happy today may only last a short time and then life events will overtake that emotion with worry and fear, or pain.
We might look to what Solomon was seeking to understand where things went wrong. What is being done in the world? More than what is being done, why is it happening? What motivates people in the world?
It doesn’t take long to discover that search will make you unhappy because it deals with the most selfish and unloving motives in man’s fallen nature. Why ask why? Understanding their nature will not change their nature.
It might be that Solomon wanted to use his great wisdom to change the nature of mankind and he discovered that wisdom alone changes nothing.
It wasn’t until Jesus came and showed us what love can do that we discovered that only love can change the nature of mankind. When we accept Christ and become this new creation in Christ is when we discover what true happiness means.
Isaiah 45:9 English Standard Version (ESV) “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?
Happiness is found in embracing the change God is performing in us.