That’s Why We Need Jesus

“As I commute from work everyday, I would slump on the bus, look outside the window and stare at nothing. I often ask myself, ‘Why is life so difficult?'”

It was not a cry of complaint; the guy didn’t look like he was in pain and he wasn’t trying to be melodramatic either. It was actually just a side comment about work and how everything is just difficult. We were talking about the book of Ecclesiastes and the dull repetition of everyday life.

His words stung. I looked away as I wiped the tear away from my eyes.

I just told them that the phrase “under the sun” is the keyword of the book of Ecclesiastes and that it refers to a horizontal life, a life that is lived outside of the will of God. I also told them that Ecclesiastes raised questions that waited hundreds of years before the answer came in the person of Jesus.

Then it hit me  afresh.

We suffer the drudgery of life because we are a broken people. Sin broke us in the garden of Eden. We live hard lives because that is the result of the fall. But instead of glossing over our emptiness with shallow psychobabble, we must remember that all our suffering and boredom and pain and drudgery actually point us to our need of Jesus.

We suffer, yes. Life gets difficult, yes. We get fed up with the never-ending routine of daily living, yes. But this is exactly why we need a Savior who will rescue us from the utter vanity of life. Life is hard, that’s why we need Jesus.