Vanity of Vanities; All Is Vanity

I've just started a study on the book of Ecclesiastes. (Weird, I know, right???) In the first passage, we see Solomon sighing at the sameness of it all. When my kids get that "I'm bored" whining thing going on, I think I'm going to teach them this phrase - vanity of vanities; all is vanity - just so they're a little more poetic about it.

Verses 3-9 speak of the sameness of the world. Solomon sees this as "nothing new under the sun." The sun rises and goes down. The winds follow their prescribed paths. Rivers run to the sea and not upstream. We have to work for a living. Our eyes and ears aren't satisfied. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

I've been thinking a lot about God's creation lately. What this passage gives me is not a depressing dissatisfaction in the sameness of it all but an amazement at God's orderliness in His creation! The news shows us the anomalies - the earthquakes, the floods, the droughts, the hurricanes and tornadoes. But more notable and newsworthy is the fact that on most days in most locations on the planet, EVERYTHING moves exactly according to God's machinery - DESPITE the anomalies! Cycles of day and night, seasons, temperatures, winds, gravity always works, water freezes from the top down (Think that's a minor thing? Ask the fish who have to breathe under the ice all winter!), seed time and harvest, the chemical intricacies carried out by each cell in your body. It's incredible.

...All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16b-17