Ecclesiastes 1:1-11: in context

The Preacher begins his book with a stark declaration: vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What does a person gain, he asks, from all the toil at which they labor under the sun? And he paints a picture of endless, wearying cycles: generations come and go, the sun rises and sets and rises again, the wind circles round, the rivers run to the sea but the sea is never full. There is nothing new under the sun, and no lasting memory of what has been. Life under the sun, viewed on its own, is a wearying round that yields no lasting gain.

The Preacher is looking at life honestly, and specifically at life under the sun, that is, life considered on its own terms, apart from God, within the closed circle of this world. And viewed that way, he finds it vanity, emptiness, a wearying round of endless cycles that go nowhere and yield no lasting gain. The generations pass and are forgotten; the natural cycles repeat without progress; nothing is truly new; nothing lasts. If this world, on its own, is all there is, then life is a treadmill that leads nowhere, and all our toil gains nothing that endures. It is a bleak vision, and the Preacher states it plainly. But the very bleakness of this vision points beyond itself. The emptiness the Preacher finds in life under the sun is the emptiness of a life considered apart from God and eternity. If this closed circle of the world were all there is, life would indeed be vanity, as he says. But the ache the Preacher feels, the sense that all this toil and all these cycles should amount to something more, points to what lies beyond the sun: the eternal God, who alone gives lasting meaning to what is otherwise vanity. The Preacher's honest despair over life under the sun is, in a way, an argument for the reality of God and eternity, for without them, life is indeed the vanity he describes. And so his book, which begins with vanity, ends elsewhere: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. The answer to the vanity of life under the sun is the God who is above it. This searches where we look for meaning. If we seek lasting gain within the closed circle of this world, in toil, achievement, pleasure, or possessions considered on their own, we will find, as the Preacher did, that it is vanity, that it yields no lasting gain, that it is a wearying round leading nowhere. Lasting meaning is not found under the sun but above it, in the eternal God. Set your minds, Paul says, on things above, not on things on the earth. This calls us to look beyond the sun for our meaning and hope. The Preacher's honest reckoning with the vanity of life under the sun warns us not to seek lasting gain where it cannot be found, in this world on its own, and points us to the eternal God, who alone gives meaning and gain that endure, so that we set our hearts on him rather than on the vanity of a life lived merely under the sun.

Do I seek lasting meaning and gain within the closed circle of this world, in toil, achievement, pleasure, or possessions on their own, and can the Preacher's honest reckoning that life under the sun is vanity, a wearying round yielding no lasting gain, warn me that lasting meaning is not found there but above the sun, in the eternal God, so that I set my heart on him rather than on the vanity of a life lived merely under the sun?