Enjoying What You Have

Enjoying What You Have

Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite.

This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Ecclesiastes 6:9

Enjoying what you currently have is better than letting your heart wander. You should make use of what is in front of you instead of wandering around full of desires. This is what the dog in Aesop’s writings did when it chased after the reflection in the water and lost the meat it had in its mouth. You should use what God has placed before you and be satisfied with it. You shouldn’t try to satisfy your own desires, because they will never be satisfied. Instead, you should use whatever God has placed in front of you. All of it is very good (Genesis 1:31).

Faithful people are pleased with what they currently have and consider it all to be a gift from God. Unbelievers, however, act differently. Everything they see in front of them is nothing but a nuisance. They don’t use these gifts or enjoy them. Rather, they allow their hearts to roam in discontent. If they have money, they don’t find pleasure in it or enjoy it. They always want something different. If they have a spouse, they want someone else. If they acquire a kingdom, they aren’t satisfied with just one. Alexander the Great, for example, wanted another world to conquer.

We should keep our eyes on what we already have in front of us. We should delight in all of it. We should enjoy it and give thanks to God for it. God doesn’t want our hearts to wander to thoughts of other things. This passage points out that we should make use of what we currently have. Letting our hearts wander around filled with desires is meaningless.