What is the meaning of life? How can purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life be found? How can something of lasting significance be achieved? So many people have never stopped to consider these important questions. They look back years later and wonder why their relationships have fallen apart and why they feel so empty, even though they may have achieved what they set out to accomplish. An athlete who had reached the pinnacle of his sport was once asked what he wished someone would have told him when he first started playing his sport. He replied, “I wish that someone would have told me that when you reach the top, there's nothing there.” Many goals reveal their emptiness only after years have been wasted in their pursuit.

In our humanistic culture, people pursue many things, thinking that in them they will find meaning. Some of these pursuits include business success, wealth, good relationships, sex, entertainment, and doing good to others. People have testified that while they achieved their goals of wealth, relationships, and pleasure, there was still a deep void inside, a feeling of emptiness that nothing seemed to fill.

The author of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes describes this feeling when he says, “Meaningless! Meaningless! , Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). King Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, had wealth beyond measure, wisdom beyond any man of his time or ours, hundreds of women, palaces and gardens that were the envy of kingdoms, the best food and wine, and every form of entertainment available. He said at one point that anything his heart wanted, he pursued. And yet he summed up “life under the sun”—life lived as though all there is to life is what we can see with our eyes and experience with our senses—is meaningless. Why is there such a void? Because God created us for something beyond what we can experience in the here-and-now. Solomon said of God, “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, ” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). In our hearts we are aware that the “here-and-now” is not all that there is.

In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we find that God created mankind in His image (Genesis 1:26). This means that we are more like God than we are like anything else (any other life form). We also find that before mankind fell into sin and the curse of sin came upon the earth, the following things were true: 1) [/b]God made man a social creature (Genesis 2:18-25); [b]2) God gave man work (Genesis 2:15); 3) God had fellowship with man (Genesis 3:8 ); and 4) God gave man dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26). What is the significance of these things? God intended for each of these to add to our fulfillment in life, but all of these (especially man's fellowship with God) were adversely affected by man's fall into sin and the resulting curse upon the earth (Genesis 3).

In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, God reveals that He will destroy this present earth and heavens and usher in the eternal state by creating a new heaven and a new earth. At that time, He will restore full fellowship with redeemed mankind, while the unredeemed will have been judged unworthy and cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15). The curse of sin will be done away with; there will be no more sin, sorrow, sickness, death, or pain (Revelation 21:4). God will dwell with them, and they shall be His sons (Revelation 21:7). Thus, we come full circle: God created us to have fellowship with Him, man sinned, breaking that fellowship, God restores that fellowship fully in the eternal state. To go through life achieving everything only to die separated from God for eternity would be worse than futile! But God has made a way to not only make eternal bliss possible (Luke 23:43) but also life on earth satisfying and meaningful. How is this eternal bliss and “heaven on earth” obtained?

Meaning of life restored through Jesus Christ

Real meaning in life, both now and in eternity, is found in the restoration of the relationship with God that was lost with Adam and Eve's fall into sin. That relationship with God is only possible through His Son, Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12; John 1:12; 14:6). Eternal life is gained when we repent of our sin (no longer want to continue in it) and Christ changes us, making of us new creations, and we rely on Jesus Christ as Savior.

Real meaning in life is not found only in accepting Jesus as Savior, as wonderful as that is. Rather, real meaning in life is when one begins to follow Christ as His disciple, learning of Him, spending time with Him in His Word, communing with Him in prayer, and in walking with Him in obedience to His commands. If you are not a Christian (or perhaps a new believer), you might be saying to yourself, “That does not sound very exciting or fulfilling to me!” But Jesus made the following statements:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10b). “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

What all of these verses are saying is that we have a choice. We can continue to seek to guide our own lives, which results in emptiness, or we can choose to pursue God and His will for our lives with a whole heart, which will result in living life to the full, having the desires of our hearts met, and finding contentment and satisfaction. This is so because our Creator loves us and desires the best for us (not necessarily the easiest life, but the most fulfilling).

The Christian life can be compared to the choice of whether to purchase the expensive seats at a sporting event that are close to the action, or pay less and watch the game from a distance. Watching God work “from the front row” is what we should choose but, sadly, is not what most people choose. Watching God work firsthand is for whole-hearted disciples of Christ who have truly stopped pursuing their own desires to pursue instead God's purposes. They have paid the price (complete surrender to Christ and His will); they are experiencing life to its fullest; and they can face themselves, their fellow man, and their Maker with no regrets. Have you paid the price? Are you willing to? If so, you will not hunger after meaning or purpose again.

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The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is obviously 42. I thought everybody knew that. Why are you so concerned about what it means anyway? Why can't you just enjoy the ride?

Also, it is now considered to be highly unlikely that the book of Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon. The language style and many of the borrowed words in it suggest a much later date. Perhaps it was one of the later kings, or maybe its all allegorical. Thoroughly enjoyable book though.

Evil Brain:

The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is obviously 42. I thought everybody knew that. Why are you so concerned about what it means anyway? Why can't you just enjoy the ride?

I believe I once told him that (if not him, someone else) but they never listen.

Why are you so concerned about what it means anyway? Why can't you just enjoy the ride?

He cant. There has to be more for him.

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
Douglas Adams

My friends, if all there is to this life is, eat , work, sex, entertainment, we are of all men the most miserable.

Surely animals live a better quality of life to this regard.

At the most we have a worldwide average life expectancy of 70 years. After this we die and the next generation takes over.

This is what Solomon has to say about that.

Ecclesiastes 12

1 Remember your Creator
   in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
   and the years approach when you will say,
   “I find no pleasure in them”—

2 before the sun and the light
   and the moon and the stars grow dark,
   and the clouds return after the rain;

3 when the keepers of the house tremble,
   and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
   and those looking through the windows grow dim;

4 when the doors to the street are closed
   and the sound of grinding fades;
when people rise up at the sound of birds,
   but all their songs grow faint;

5 when people are afraid of heights
   and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
   and the grasshopper drags itself along
   and desire no longer is stirred.
Then people go to their eternal home
   and mourners go about the streets.

6 Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
   and the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
   and the wheel broken at the well,

7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
   and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

8 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.[a]
   “Everything is meaningless!”

Yet you have not still explained the meaning of Life, rather you have saddened us with your nihilism, that life is meaningless and useless. Does service and total self devotion to God or any other cause cure the nihilism?!