Hiking after a rainfall, we hit a mud patch so deep we’d have lost our shoes if we’d stepped in it. Thankfully, other hikers had dropped a series of stepping stones. Hopping across them, we arrived on the other side of the mud unsullied. But we didn’t hop from stone to stone randomly; we had a destination in mind—the other side. Stepping stones aren’t meant to leave us in the middle of the morass. Yet that’s how many people around us live, isn’t it? Hopping from life event to life event with no particular destination, no ultimate aim, in mind. Their aimlessness gives us a powerful evangelistic opportunity. Stuck in the Middle Consider an “American dream” life marked by the achievements many deem destinations, but that are really brief stops on a road to nowhere. Study hard in school to get good grades (or work hard at extracurriculars) to get into the right university to get the right degree. Skip from stone to stone—but without arriving. Stepping stones aren’t meant to leave us in the middle of the morass. Yet that’s how many people around us live. After all, what’s the point of the diploma? To get the right job. Given how much of life we spend at work, it’s a huge stone—but not the end. It provides a sense of significance and security, achievement and approval (assuming we perform), but few would claim work’s the goal. We work to make money so we can live the good life. Get a job, get married, get the dream home. Then we can start a family. “I’m doing it for my kids.” Is that the end? No way. With kids, we don’t reach a destination; we just increase the number of travelers on the stepping-stone path. Children don’t break the cycle; we raise them to repeat the cycle. We want them to get good grades so they get into a good school, so they get a well-paying job, so they can buy a house, start a family, and have kids who get good grades and . . . uh oh. We’re still stuck in the middle of the meaningless morass—just stuck together now. With Peggy Lee, the people around us wonder, “Is that all there is?” Meaningless Meandering Ours isn’t the first generation to ask. Three millennia ago, the Teacher repined, “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. (Eccl. 1:2–4, NIV) In moments of transition or reflection, we grasp how meaningless human life is if it’s all there is. Life is a vain, fruitless search for wonder, for significance, for hope that transcends not just mundane life but life—full stop. And if life is all we have, it’s a road to nowhere. That’s exactly what the Teacher learns. He proceeds chronologically across the same stones we traverse, finding at each step that he’s still stuck in the middle. All those years of schooling, applying your mind to study, exploring wisdom? That’s a chasing after the wind (vv. 13–18). Pursuing pleasure, sowing those wild oats before you settle down to responsible family life? You could refuse yourself no pleasure and still discover it’s all meaningless (2:1–11). We’re just buckets with a giant hole in the bottom. We keep trying to fill ourselves to overflowing, but it doesn’t work. The feeling doesn’t last. We go away as empty as when we started. Decades laboring at your job, even if you’re successful and achieve great things? All that “toil and striving” is ultimately meaningless too, because you have to leave it to someone else in the end (vv. 20–23). We’re only in the Teacher’s second chapter, and it’s clear the search is in vain. “Under the sun,” he never arrives. Generations come and go, repeating the same cycle. It’s all just another step on a journey to nowhere, aimless meandering to an indeterminate end. Help Others Arrive How can Christians—who know “the conclusion of the matter” (12:13, NIV), who’ve learned like the Teacher to fear God and find everlasting, all-satisfying joy in him—help friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues get out of the metaphysical morass and onto the firm ground of gospel truth? We know the dream won’t satisfy. We know it’s all drinking stagnant water from cracked cisterns when streams of living water flow nearby (Jer. 2:13). By learning to ask powerful questions, we can help those in our sphere of influence see this. Imagine chatting with a neighbor who’s working too many hours to get that promotion, a friend who enrolled her child in extensive after-school tutoring to get a leg up on the competition, a colleague who’s on his third relationship this year . . . They’re in the middle of the mud but have no idea where the trail picks up—or where it leads. A genuinely curious, open-ended question might unlock their hearts. “If you reach this goal, what will that give you?”  “How will you feel if you don’t get what you want—if you don’t find what you’re looking for?” “What will accomplishing this task do for you?” “What will you do if this doesn’t satisfy—if the good feelings fade faster than you want (like they did last time)?” Such questions could spark thoughtful spiritual reflection: Where am I going—and why? By leading people to contemplate the destination, what they truly desire, we can get them to consider the path they’re on. By leading people to contemplate the destination, we can get them to consider the path they’re on. Are they heading in the right direction or going around in circles in the mud? Even if they get all they want, do all they set out to do, accomplish every goal they made, they’ll still be stuck in the middle. We can help people see that their dreams are too small to soothe the soul’s ache. From there, we can point them to the “chief end,” the golden shore where the stepping stones of faith lead: to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That’s a place we can reach, a destination worth aiming for. When it comes to our deepest desires, God is plenty big. It’s our dream that’s too small.