The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

One of my favorite thought leaders today is columnist and Christian, David Brooks.  He recently published an essay on the absence of hope and purpose in so much of America.  As I read his essay, I kept thinking of the book of Ecclesiastes.  I want to quote from his essay and then turn to the solution in the 3,000 year old book written by King Solomon.

Brooks observes that “In a new survey, the Gallup organization interviewed people across 142 countries and asked them a series of questions to determine whether they felt they were thriving in their lives or struggling or, worst of all, suffering.  The number of people who say they are thriving has been rising steadily for a decade. The number of people who say they are suffering is down to 7 percent globally, tying with the lowest level since 2007. This trend is truly worldwide, with strong gains in well-being in countries as far-flung as Kosovo, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Paraguay.  Unfortunately, there is a little bad news. Some people reported sharp declines in well-being. That would be us. The share of the population that is thriving is falling in America, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In 2007, 67 percent of Americans and Canadians said they were thriving. Now it’s down to 49 percent.

To put it another way, the nations with some of the highest standards of living are seeing the greatest declines in well-being. We still enjoy higher absolute levels of well-being than nations in the developing world do, but the trend lines are terrible.”

According to a Gallup survey from January, the share of Americans who say they are “very satisfied” with their lives has hit a new low. According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer report, only 30 percent of Americans feel optimistic for the next generation.  What’s going on here?  “People thrive when they live in societies with rising standards of living and dense networks of relationships, and where they feel their lives have a clear sense of purpose and meaning. That holy trinity undergirds any healthy society. It’s economic, social and spiritual . . . Feeling your life has purpose and meaning, he adds, is a strong driver of where you think you are going to be five years from now.”  A few other salient observations from Brooks’s essay:

• I’d say that the nations that are doing well in that Gallup thriving survey are those that are experiencing rising living standards while preserving their traditional social arrangements and value systems. The nations like America that are seeing declining well-being are fine economically, but their social and spiritual environments are deteriorating . . . Why have rich nations lagged behind in this way? Tyler J. VanderWeele of Harvard theorizes that maybe it’s a question of priorities. “I tend to think you end up getting what you value most,” he told me. “When a society is oriented toward economic gain, you will be moderately successful, but not if it’s done at the expense of meaning and community.”
• “I’d add that we in the West have aggressively embraced values that when taken to excess are poisonous to our well-being. Over the past several decades, according to the World Values Survey, North America, Western Europe and the English-speaking nations have split off culturally from the rest of the world. ‘Since the 1960s we have adopted values that are more secular, more individualistic and more oriented around self-expression . . . The master trend in recent Western culture has been to emancipate the individual from the group, and now we are paying the social and spiritual price.’”
• “But around 2011 something changed. Lower happiness levels transmogrified into higher levels of depression and mental illness, a related but different thing. That year, young progressives began reporting a significant rise in depression rates. A few years later, conservatives began reporting a similar rise, but not to the same degree. A 2024 survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found that 35 percent of “very conservative” college students said they suffer from poor mental health at least half the time, which is terrible, but 57 percent of ‘very liberal’ students did, which is horrendous.”
• “Let’s be clear about what’s happened here: greed. Americans have become so obsessed with economic success that we’ve neglected the social and moral conditions that undergird human flourishing. Schools spend more time teaching professional knowledge than they do social and spiritual knowledge. The prevailing values worship individual choice and undermine the core commitments that precede choice — our love for family, neighborhood, nation and the truth.”

In the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon offers an analysis and solution to the same issue raised in Brooks’s essay—the purpose and meaning of life.  I preached a sermon series recently on the wisdom books of the Old Testament; I am quoting from various segments of that series.

1. Chuck Swindoll writes:  “We all desire meaning in life. Often that search takes us along winding, up-and-down paths filled with bursts of satisfaction that shine bright for a time but eventually fade. In one sense, it’s satisfying to see that experience echoed throughout Ecclesiastes. An appreciation for our common humanity emerges from reading its pages. We relate to the journey of Solomon because, for so many of us, it is our own. When we attempt to find meaning in the pursuit of pleasure, the commitment to a job, or through plumbing intellectual depths, we all eventually find in each of these pursuits a dead end.”

“Ecclesiastes shows us a man who lived through this process and came out on the other side with a wiser, more seasoned perspective. When we’re surrounded by the temptation to proclaim life’s ultimate emptiness, we can find in Ecclesiastes a vision tempered by experience and ultimately seen through divinely colored lenses. Life is destined to remain unsatisfying apart from our recognition of God’s intervention. It only remains to be seen whether or not we will place our trust in His sure and able hands.”

2. Why does Ecclesiastes paint such a dark picture of life?

• Solomon demonstrates that life without God has no meaning.  Earthly goals as ends in themselves lead to dissatisfaction and emptiness.  Solomon shocks us into seeing life and death strictly from ground level, and into reaching the only conclusions from that standpoint that intellectual honesty permits.
• Since much in life cannot be fully understood, we must live by faith, not sight.  Humans are not in control, for life is filled with unexplained enigmas, unresolved anomalies, and uncorrected injustices.  Solomon affirms human finiteness and that much of life is a mystery.  Life cannot be only horizontal; there must be a vertical dimension to life.
• Life “under the sun” cannot provide accurate and exhaustive answers if this is a “closed-box” universe.  If there is nothing beyond the physical world, then all is futile, empty and meaningless.
• The only answer that provides meaning to life is to fear God and enjoy one’s lot (12:13-14).  On their own, humans find life empty, frustrating and mysterious.  With God in the picture, emptiness becomes fulfillment, frustration becomes contentment and the mysterious becomes the awe-inspiring, even if there is not exhaustive understanding.

3. In Ecclesiastes 1:2, we find the thesis statement—“vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” “Vanity” translates the Hebrew word hebel, which means something like “vapor” or “breath;” that which is fleeting, hard to grasp or capture. Much of life escapes our understanding and often seems meaningless, without substance, value, permanence, or significance.  Note that this is applied to “everything,” to “all,” which refers to all human activity, not to the total uselessness of the universe.  In 1:3-11, Solomon provides evidence for his thesis:

• V. 3—there is no ultimate advantage, profit, or gain to human labor.
• V. 4—humans are so transitory, impermanent and seemingly insignificant
• Vv. 5-7—nature shows the lack of value to activity in and of itself.  It produces nothing of ultimate value.  Look at the sun and the wind, the streams that flow into the sea, for everything seems cyclical without effecting any progress or reaching any fixed goal.
• Vv. 8-11—what we see in nature we also see in human endeavor.  There is nothing really new (v. 9), and even things that seem new really are not (vv. 10-11), for people just forget the past.  Things that humans produce are not really new (e.g., even the moon is just another point for discovery) and ultimately only produce indescribable weariness and lack of satisfaction.

In 1:1-11, Solomon contrasted the uniformity and permanence of the natural world with the transitory and impermanence of the human condition.  It was puzzling and it caused him to reach the conclusion of “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”  Life made no sense to him; it seemed futile and empty.  Using his greatest gift, his wisdom, he launched a thorough investigation of life “under the sun.” Using his wisdom, could he find the solution to his dilemma?  Would his brilliance solve the problem?

4. His investigation yielded these conclusions:  The futility of pleasure-seeking (hedonism) 2:1-11 and the futility of materialism, 2:12-23.  Even as he brought God into his investigation (see Chapter 3), the reality of God’s sovereignty and providential superintendence of all things did not answer all his questions.  His thesis is that every action of humanity can be traced to its ultimate source, an all-embracing plan that is administered by God (see 3:1).  All is a part of the eternal, immutable, inscrutable providence of God.  Here we see the distinct contrast between humanity’s brevity and God’s eternity.  We must be astounded at God’s constancy.  God is not like us.  He is the Creator and the Judge of all the earth (see 12:14).  In chapter 3 we get the most beautiful contemplation on our passing, changing times in contrast to God’s unchanging, eternal fullness.  His eternality provides a stunning contrast to our vaporous lives, and a trustworthy support to all the events of world history.  It is the combination of these two perspectives that provides the anchor to our lives of change.

5. In 12:8-14, Solomon posits his conclusion:

• “Fear God”—a worship word of devotion and awe
• “Keep His commandments”—obedience
• Because humans are accountable to God—for everything, even the “secret” things.  This is a comfort and is also most convicting.

What then is the profit of living?  What does the human race get for all its work?  What is the value and purpose of life?  The answer is the living God!  Humans are responsible beings, not brutes.  The beginning, middle and end of life is coming to know and trust God; receiving His good gifts; learning how to enjoy these good gifts; understanding the major part of His plan for us; and being guided into the joyous and strenuous pursuit of the art of living, even though portions of this life are mysterious and uncertain.

The box of the universe is not closed.  There is a transcendent God who has revealed Himself to us.  We can know Him.  We can enjoy Him.  We can walk with Him.  We can experience the joy and fulfillment He has intended for us.  It is a life of faith and confident trust in Him.

See David Brooks in the New York Times (8 August 2025).