Succeeding and still stuck

Pastor Devon Ortiz continued his series on getting out of a rut with Ecclesiastes 2, asking what better example there is than someone who was prospering and failing at the same time. You can be happy in your rut and still be failing, he said. Solomon had every opportunity, and Pastor Ortiz called this one of the books we most need today, because so many of us, especially in America, can have nearly whatever we want. In verses 1 to 10 Solomon tried pleasure, laughter, wine, great works, houses, vineyards, orchards, servants, silver and gold, singers, and instruments. "Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them," he wrote. "I withheld not my heart from any joy."

He asked the congregation to listen for repeated words. The first is "I" and "me": I builded me, I got me, I made me. Here was a man who lived his life to please himself and found himself unhappy. You are free to choose how you live your life, Pastor Ortiz said, but you do not get to choose the results. Everyone who has chosen to live outside of what God wants, he said, has ended up in a personal hell of their own making. Solomon should have been the happiest man who ever lived, and he found himself empty.

What was Solomon's problem?

He took answers from the congregation, and one by one he set them aside.

It was not the women. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. We call that outlandish, Pastor Ortiz said, and yet the same lust shows up in men who go looking online when no one is watching.

It was not overthinking. Solomon talks to himself all through this chapter, and it wore him down until, in verse 18, he hated the thought of leaving his labor to the man after him. It is good to plan, but we can lie awake running through everything tomorrow holds and be overwhelmed before the day has started. We overthink because we are not trusting God to do what He is supposed to do, and we have taken every care of the world on ourselves.

It was not idolatry. First Kings 11 says his wives turned away his heart after other gods, yet this was the same man who saw fire come down from heaven and heard God say in 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray."

It was not materialism. He was told not to amass wealth and chariots, and he did it because it was available. Just because something is available does not make it a good thing to have. It was not his many children, and it was not the search for entertainment either, though Pastor Ortiz had a warning for parents who want only to come home and do nothing. The name Smith, he explained, comes from a time when a blacksmith's son went to work with his father every day, so that by thirteen he could run the shop. He learned the trade because he spent time with his dad, and we are missing a lot of that.

The word that keeps returning is "heart." I said in my heart. I sought in my heart. I withheld not my heart. The issue was not women, wine, or work. His heart was in the wrong place, and that is why as an old man he told his son in Proverbs 4:23, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Who you let influence you is who you become, Pastor Ortiz told the young people, and it is far easier to be pulled down than to lift someone up. When students at the college where he teaches ask whether they should pursue someone, he asks them how that person will make them better. Solomon thought he could give himself to wine while "acquainting mine heart with wisdom" and keep control, the way someone with a sweet tooth thinks one bite will be enough. Your wisdom will not save you when your heart is fixed on the wrong thing. It is the same with our closets, garages, and junk drawers: we have too much, and volume gets in the way of what matters. In verse 10, "withheld" means he did not restrain himself. There are some desires, Pastor Ortiz said, that you need to tell to shut up, and the test is whether they are distracting you and keeping you from progress. Nothing wrong came into Solomon's hands, but everything wrong affected his heart.

Then I looked

Verse 11 begins with "Then." Only one verse after saying his heart rejoiced in all his labor, Solomon looked at everything he had done, "and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit." He got the truth after it was all said and done. Vanity means empty. Pastor Ortiz told of spending a full day as a young man moving boxes from nine in the morning until seven at night for a wealthy surgeon in Palo Alto, looking forward to the envelope, and opening it to find eighty dollars. Now imagine putting a whole life into something and finding it empty. Vexation means striving after wind. As a boy he once ran around with a plastic bag trying to catch the wind. You can tie the bag shut, he said, and when you open it you have nothing. We give our whole lives to work, entertainment, and ourselves, and open the bag to find the same.

How to get unstuck

Recognize that the heart is the battleground. Solomon was testing for what would make him happy, not for what would yield him to God. We have a theology that says if you believe something with all your heart, that is good enough. But the heart is deceitfully wicked, and God does not care how much you believe in your heart if what you believe puts Him second. The plagues of Egypt took down the very things Egypt held highest. Whatever rules your heart will run your calendar, your desires, and your life. If it is not God and you belong to God, he said, He will destroy it.

Have a singular focus. Solomon had one, and it was on things around God and not on God. You can come to church for a ministry, for your kids, or to look like a good Christian and end up with nothing. Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God, and Paul said, "I press toward the mark." Your rut is not a mood or a phase, Pastor Ortiz said. It is an altar.

Once your heart is narrowed, open it wide to God. Psalm 139 prays, "Search me, O God, and know my heart." Stop playing the game of Christianity and trying to get God to sign off on what you want. Proverbs 3:5-6 says to trust in the Lord with all your heart, which means all of your heart has to be His, and to lean not on our own understanding, because facts do not care about feelings and everything God says is fact. Do not ask, "Lord, is this okay?" Ask, "Lord, what would You want me to do?" When God gets the first pick, he said, it is always the right one.