2026-11-01
Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 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, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
It is surprising that I have found such a phrase in the Bible when I thought I had reread Ecclesiastes several times. As it is likely that you too missed the question the first time, I will repeat it: “…for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” Many people imagine, and embarrassedly, I have too , that to bring God into our business or conversations is to spoil all the fun. True enough, religion and its imposed ascetism on occasion at once testifies against all kind of fun and enjoyment. But we must never let ourselves or others be so quick to class God with sullenness and long-facedness. The capacity to enjoy good things– health, wealth, love, sex, is in fact given by God himself, and apart from him no one can eat or have enjoyment.
C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity Book 2, Chapter 3, A Shocking Alternative:
Some people think the fall of man had something to do with sex, but that is a mistake. (The story in the Book of Genesis rather suggests that some corruption in our sexual nature followed the fall and was its result, not its cause.) What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’— could set up on their own as if they had created themselves— be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
Prayer: Omnipotent God and merciful Father, every good and perfect gift is from you, nor can any man have anything unless it is given him from heaven. Remind us that apart from you there is no joy or fulfilment to be had. In Jesus Name. Amen.