The Search For Meaning Series

Since its founding in 1995, people have used eBay to sell billions of items. They include some odd products and occasionally something priceless. For example…

In 1954, the great physicist Albert Einstein penned a personal letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind in which he defended his views on ethics, religion, and human nature. Nearly 60 years later (2012), it caused a minor media sensation by selling on eBay for $3 million.

A piece of rock that was formed on Mars somehow managed to crash-land on Earth. As one can imagine, the odds against this happening are astronomical! A fragment from one of these rocks was auctioned away for $450,000.

In 2002 an eBay post advertised the sale of an entire "working town" that just needed the "proper development." For the highest bidder, the town—Bridgeville, California—even came with its own zip code: 95526. An anonymous businessman bid $1.77 million but backed out of the deal after visiting some of Bridgeville's desolate shacks. However, the town did find a new buyer that year, who resold it on eBay in 2006 for $1.25 million.

On eBay a man from North Carolina boasted, “I have discovered the reason for existence, and will be happy to share this information with the highest bidder.” The starting bid was one cent. “The meaning for life” sold for $3.26. Neither the buyer nor seller have gone public with the contents of his revelation (Mark Mancini, "7 Priceless Items People Sold on eBay," Mental Floss; www.PreachingToday.com).

That’s probably because the buyer got what he paid for—a cheap, worthless revelation.

A lot of people are searching for meaning in life, but no one seems to be able to find it. Even the great King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, struggled in his search for meaning. He wrote about his search for meaning in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible around 3,000 years ago. And though that was so long ago, he provides some of the best insight into the meaning of life that I’ve ever read, even among the more contemporary philosophers. So, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to that book, the book of Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes 1, where Solomon describes his search for meaning.

Ecclesiastes 1:12-14 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 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. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind (ESV).

Solomon thoroughly examines everything people do under the sun. He uses all the faculties of his mind and skill to penetrate the core of their toilsome, burdensome labor. He observes all their accomplishments and concludes that they are only striving or chasing after the wind. Any gain or profit from their labor is vanity. Literally, it is but a breath or vaper, which quickly dissipates. There is no lasting value or meaning to anything anyone does on this earth. So if you want to find meaning in life…

LOOK BEYOND YOUR OWN HANDS.

Seek beyond your own accomplishments. Search for significance outside of the work of your own hands.

Every February, Devin Kelly looks forward to meeting his running friends at Farmdaze. It’s a farm in Brooklet, Georgia, where organizers run a 24-hour, ultra-marathon event. Along with the pig roasts and folk music, some runners cover up to 100 miles in a single day, others a fraction of that, but Farmdaze is a place of grace:

The organizers advertise it as “a place that calls itself a race but is really everything that a race isn’t. (It is) an event that lets people give up if they want, that doesn’t shame them for it. (It) lets them become present in the story that is, simply all of us trying to love all of us…”

Originally, Kelly ran competitively for personal pride and for his father, who would travel long distances to see him and his brother run. He loved running because it always meant something.

A few years ago (2020), Kelly was gruelingly pushing himself to reach the 100 miles. He said he found himself alone, “under a field of stars, soaking wet, skin steaming.” He said, “I tried to see the stars, but my headlamp’s glare made it impossible. So, I turned it off and offered myself to the dark. What is the point of all of this,” he asked himself. “What is the… point?”

Suddenly, almost like a bolt of lightning, Kelly… felt partly empty, without purpose… “The truth is,” he said, “I wanted to feel more… There was so much distance between what I felt and what I was supposed to feel. It made me sad… I had believed in what society told me would happen: that I would push through a challenge and emerge, new and strong, where love was. But I was left instead with the deep, profound emptiness knowing entirely for certain that what you were told by society was wrong… (Devin Kelly, “Out There: On Not Finishing,” Longreads, September, 2020; www.PreachingToday.com).