Pastor Johann,

I didn't quite understand what you were saying about the falls. What "power" are you talking about? Power generators in the falls?

I think Ecc 1:2-11 is a lament about the lack of purpose or meaning in the various events around us. The water cycle has been that way for a long time, and it will continue that way for a long time. But in and of itself, it has no meaning; it is hebel.

For anything to have real meaning, we have to get past the temporal, and see how they impact the eternal. Consider the sun's rising and setting. I enjoy studying physics and how it keeps the solar system running smoothly. But if I just studied gravity and momentum and how they make the planets move, it would be pretty meaningless. Only as they point me to God do they have true meaning.

Generating electricity is an important part of physics. Is it possible to have this point your thought to the Creator?

The earth goes on and on; we don't. We are nothing but vapor, hebel These thoughts get to the ultimate dilemma of humanity: We are beings capable of understanding the idea of eternity, of transcendence, of something greater than ourselves, and yet, we see that it's beyond our reach. The sun, the rivers, the wind-all were here before us and will be here long after we return to the dust. We come and go; the rivers, the sun, and the wind remain. No wonder life can seem to be, as Shakespeare wrote, a tale "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

There have been many great thinkers, many great philosophers, with all sorts of elaborate and logical systems, all designed to explain the hard questions of life. But unless they can solve the question of death, they have no answers for the questions of life, for, in the end, all life is swept up in death. And, as one can guess, none of these philosophers has answered the problem (most of them are dead themselves). Only Jesus, by His death and His resurrection, has. Jesus has shown us that death isn't the end and that we, indeed, can one day be alive long after the endless cycles of life on this fallen planet have ceased to exist or even be remembered (Isa. 65:17). If not for that hope, Solomon would be justified in his pessimism.