Under the Sun – Among the Ruins
“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.”
— Ecclesiastes 2:24
Meditative Exposition
The preacher who cried Hevel was no cynic.
He looked straight into futility and found — not despair — but gratitude.
He had seen death level all ambitions.
He had seen the proud undone and the wise forgotten.
Yet amid the vapor he still declared:
“There is nothing better than to eat, and drink, and find joy in one’s toil.”
This is not resignation; it is revelation.
When we stop demanding that life be eternal,
we begin to discover its eternal flavor hidden in the ordinary.
The joy of small things is not an escape from ruin.
It is joy within it — joy that dares to exist between the cracks.
Bread.
Water.
The sound of wind through leaves.
The smile that lingers after conversation.
These are not small because they are fleeting;
they are precious because they are gifts.
To notice them — truly notice them — is a kind of worship.
The soul that has felt the weight of Hevel knows this:
everything we love here glimmers only for a moment.
That is what makes it shine.
We were not made to hoard, but to behold.
To see the holy in the humble, the infinite in the immediate.
Qoheleth’s wisdom is not distant stoicism; it is tender realism.
He does not tell us to numb our longings, but to right-size them.
Eternity is not found by escaping the temporal —
it is revealed through faithful presence within it.
When Christ broke bread and said, “Do this in remembrance of Me,”
He sanctified the smallest acts of daily life.
Eating, drinking, working — all became liturgies of grace.
Even now, under the sun, joy may be found in the smallest sacrament:
the taste of fruit, the laughter of a child,
the quiet moment when the world forgets to hurry.
To rejoice in small things is not to deny the ruins.
It is to recognize that even in the ruins, gifts remain.
God has not abandoned the world He called good.
He has hidden Himself in its simplest corners.
The bread you break today
and the breath that leaves your lips
are each whispers of His generosity.
The preacher’s wisdom invites us not to despair over what fades,
but to meet God precisely there —
in what we can neither keep nor control.
Prayer of Lament and Gratitude
O Giver of every good and perfect gift,
You have set me in a world of fading beauty.
Teach me not to mourn what passes,
but to marvel that it ever was.
Let the small mercies of this day
become my teachers of eternity.
Bless the bread and the breath,
the laughter and the labor.
And when night falls again,
let me rest in the quiet joy
that even fleeting things are holy
when they come from You.
Amen.
Selah Box
Scripture Reading:
Ecclesiastes 2:24–26; Psalm 104:14–15; Matthew 6:25–34; 1 Timothy 6:6–8
Reflective Question:
What small thing have you overlooked today because you expected something greater?
How might noticing it become an act of worship?
Practice:
Choose one humble joy — a meal, a sound, a task —
and linger with it as if it were holy.
Say aloud: “This also is from the hand of God.”
Let gratitude rise slowly, without hurry.
Every hard journey is eased by good companions, and your steps alongside mine are a gift to me.
Should you wish, you may contribute some coin to the Pilgrim’s Purse.
