Verses 1-11
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Although we work tirelessly for gain and profit, we will not always see prosperity nor peace. There are times when there must be war, death, loss, destruction, etc., and then what was gained is lost. This is why there is “no profit under the sun.” Everything we gain must eventually be destroyed, whether in this generation or the next.
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So, we continue to labor while we contemplate the meaning of such a troublesome life. We do this because God has given us a consciousness of eternity—this uncanny intuition that there must be life beyond the finite. This eventually helps us understand that true life is life eternal, and that our meaning is in God and not the physical world (Acts 17:27-28).
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But there is one thing we cannot understand—“what God does from beginning to end.” As soon as we think we have life all figured out, the unexpected happens. Times change, and things come to an end.
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Remember, however, that “God has made everything beautiful in its time.” The very hardship, death, and loss that we dread is beautiful, if we would only have the sense to understand why. The monotonous cycle of life and death, gain and loss, at the very least, keeps us mindful of our need for God.
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Verses 12-22
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And when we come to God, what do we learn? We learn that God and His works are timeless, though everything else fails (Psalm 102:27). So we must fear God and be saved by Him, through Christ, to escape inevitable death and destruction.
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One thing that God has made unchanging in this earth is that we “do not know what will happen tomorrow” (James 4:14). Eventually, everyone dies like an animal and the bodies return to dust. But, this does not make the physical life entirely meaningless.
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One reason why the physical life still matters is because we must be judged for what we did on the earth (2 Corinthians 5:9-11), whether our actions were moral or immoral. Upon death, the human spirit returns to God to be judged for the works done in the body.
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Verses 16-17. Humans are not rightly judged by other humans here on earth because not every human judge is righteous. Many people are judged unfairly or unjustly. Therefore, God will judge all people—believers and unbelievers—on a future day (1 Peter 4:17-18).
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So, while you are here in the physical, focus on two things:
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1. Do what is good and right. You do not want to experience God's judgment for doing wrong.
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2. Find joy in what you have. Learn to enjoy your work, work hard, and use what you gain to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. This life is temporary and vain in many ways, so we must at least learn to enjoy it. Don't waste it in sin and unnecessary stress and turmoil.
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The reality is that the pleasures of the physical world are meaningless, but the joy we can get from them is not. Joy, in fact, is all the meaning we can derive from the physical. Be constantly thankful to God that He has allowed us to find such meaningful joy in such meaningless things!
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