"24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind."
Ecclesiastes 2:24-26
There are a number of New Testament references which may well be looked at on this theme. One is 1 Corinthians 7:29-32. It may be thought that Paul's words here are a far cry from Ecclesiastes, but this is to misunderstand the Apostle's meaning: he is not giving expression to an extreme form of asceticism here and it is to misunderstand him to suppose that these verses reveal the Apostle as a woman hater and as forbidding marriage. What he is proclaiming is a doctrine of detachment, whether in relation to marriage, sorrow or joy, or the possession of this world's goods. 'I would have you without carefulness', he says - that is, without preoccupation, without anxiety. He does not mean that one feels hard or indifferent towards either human relationships or the varying experiences of life, but it does mean that in the light of eternity, it is possible to be detached within them. This is the secret that puts a look of serenity upon the faces of those who may have broken hearts. In Philippians 4:11 Paul is able to say, 'I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content'. This was because for him life did not consist either in having or in not having things or people or relationships. 'To me to live is Christ', he said and, thus attached to Christ, he was detached from every earthly consideration, including even the dearest human ties. We may ask, in relation to 1 Corinthians 7:31, what it means to use this world 'as not abusing it'. One abuses the world when one tries to extract from it something to satisfy our deepest hearts, for the world was never designed to fulfil this purpose. There is a wonderful verse in the next chapter of Ecclesiastes (3:11) that God has set eternity (a 'forever') in our hearts and it is only the eternity of the divine love that can ever meet that deep within us. There is still more to be said on this theme and we shall continue it in the next Note.