Useless.

There is an interesting term that comes up over and over in Ecclesiastes, "Surely this also is vanity and grasping for the wind."

Solomon applies this definition to several things, all of the world and for the world. It took the wisest man ever given breath his whole life of experimentation and experience with unlimited resources to close out his search but he got to the point where he felt he had accomplished all the world had to offer and found it lacking. "Vain" means empty or worthless.

Sometimes, going through the search for a job or trying to create a job, we can feel exactly that way about what we do or, more to the point right now, who we are. The balance in our hearts pull toward a feeling of wasted effort and a lack of value until we see clearly our Total Depravity and wonder why we should continue, not just in the 'job search' or the 'business start-up' but in life. Our definition of success stops being the measure to which God would hold us but our own fear of men and the desire to have other men recognize us as contributors to society through our efforts.

There have been a number of positions for which I have applied over the last week or so and the last two responses of any sort have, in summary, Thanks, but no thanks, surrounded by a well of silence.

It is a challenge with which we are all sometime faced, to mortify the spiritual flesh and come to Him as a living sacrifice, when what the sin that lives in us wants is recognition and love on its own merits (which are always NONE).

Well, thanks be to God that He tells us over and over again this message as noted in Jeremiah 29:11-14 (and elsewhere)
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

God glorifies Himself through all of creation, every moment and motion of it. God means good to His people all the time. We need to stop letting our sin get in the way and walk the walk He has appointed us.

As Solomon concluded at the end of Ecclesiastes (12:13-14):
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
14 For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all.

Sums it up pretty well. All of it.