There are moments when effort feels meaningless. When work goes unnoticed, love goes unreturned, and faithfulness produces no visible reward. Not because it was done poorly, but because it was never wanted.
Scripture does not deny this reality. In fact, it names it plainly.
Solomon, a man who possessed wisdom, wealth, power, and achievement beyond measure, looked at the sum of human striving and reached a conclusion that feels uncomfortable precisely because it is honest: everything is vanity.
Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Practically.
He observed labor that led nowhere, wisdom that went unheeded, and righteousness that did not protect against loss. He watched people do everything right and still be left empty-handed. And he did not rush to explain it away.
There are seasons when life does not reward effort. When showing up does not change the outcome. When being steady does not make things fair.
And pretending otherwise does not make the pain lighter, it only makes it lonelier.
We are often pressured to “find meaning” too quickly, to extract growth before grief has finished speaking. But Scripture allows space for a harder truth: sometimes the meaning is simply that this hurts, and no amount of effort will redeem it right now.
Solomon called it “chasing the wind” not because striving is evil, but because striving does not guarantee fulfillment. Effort is not a contract. Faithfulness is not leverage. Love is not always returned in kind.
And there are moments when the most honest thing a person can say is not “this will work out” but “this mattered, even if it changed nothing.”
Ecclesiastes does not resolve pain in the middle chapters. It lets it exist. It lets frustration stand. It lets exhaustion speak. Only later does it offer orientation, not escape. That matters.
Because sometimes the work is not to rise above the pain, but to stand inside it without lying, to acknowledge that effort can be real, sincere, costly, and still unseen.
And that reality, as heavy as it is, does not make a person faithless.
It makes them honest.
Troy P Zehnder 