We, Not Me

Commenting on Ecclesiastes 4, David Gibson says:

If you can live in this world in such a way that the person or people beside you—your friend, your spouse, your children, your brother, your sister, the people God has put in your path—are your waking concern and your dominant focus, then you will find happiness. If your head hits the pillow at night full of questions about how you might help and serve someone else, and how you can be a certain kind of person for them, then you will find a gladness and contentment that nothing else can match.

. . . I want you to know what the Preacher is not saying. You might expect him to say that if you live for others, then you'll be more spiritual. Or more godly. You'll be a growing Christian. It is certainly true that you will be all those things, but that is not the aspect of life that the Preacher is painting in this part of his book. You will be happier. The word he uses is "quietness" (v. 6). It simply means rest—peace of mind and calmness of soul. It's a word to capture the deep well-being of those who know their place in the world, content with the boundary lines of their life and able to enjoy the fruits of their labors with a cheerful heart. The way to arrive in that place of rest is to live for we, not me.

—David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in the Light of the End (Wheaton: Crossway, 2017), 65–66.