Dust in the Wind

 Dust in the Wind by Dr. D. James Kennedy

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.     Ecclesiastes 1:2

It was left to that mournful Dane, Søren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, to say that all is vain and the quest has ended in utter despair; rationalism is dead and human reason has failed in its great effort to grasp and comprehend the universe in which we live.

It was at the time of the bloody First World War that Kierkegaard’s ideas began to take root, slowly at first, until today existentialism is without question the regnant, the dominant philosophy of our time in the world. Existentialism teaches that because of the finiteness of man and his understanding, he will never be able to grasp ultimate reality—that there is nothingness out there. 

The world is unintelligible, the cosmos cannot be comprehended, and ultimately all things are without meaning and significance. This has been the great contribution of existentialism to our time.

It is a philosophy of despair.

A young woman told me that when she was in college she embraced the existential philosophy. Certain pressures then came upon her and she endeavored to take her life. She ended up in a mental institution having shock treatments. All this because existentialism had robbed her of any meaning to life and ripped from her grasp any hold she had upon transcendental significance or purpose in this world. She knew the blackness and emptiness that the worldview of existentialism offers.

Many are enduring the emptiness of the existential philosophy.  They are wretched and lost.  They see no meaning and no hope in the world.  Their plight is to abide in hopelessness through the duration of their existence.  Their end is a Christless eternity.

May we who believe in the power of Jesus to transform our hopelessness to eternal bliss allow our lives to be "living epistles, read of all men."  May they read of our despair turned to hope, of our lostness turned to foundness in Christ, of our sinful lives turned to salvation.

Jesus, help us to reflect Your glorious light into the dark world around us.  Help us to shine Your truth into the enemy's dismal lies so everyone whose lives touch ours may see Your path to glory unmarred by dust in the wind.