Today the Word points out a sad irony of life as it relates to people who amass wealth and power only to lose it:

Ecc 6:1  There is another serious tragedy I have seen under the sun, and it weighs heavily on humanity.

Ecc 6:2  God gives some people great wealth and honor and everything they could ever want, but then he doesn’t give them the chance to enjoy these things. They die, and someone else, even a stranger, ends up enjoying their wealth! This is meaningless—a sickening tragedy.

Contemporary examples of this could be famous people who’s lives are cut short, we think of the Kennedy’s, so many of them seem to have come into unimaginable wealth and power, JFK, his brother Bobby, both on the precipice of power but never really had a chance to enjoy it, other more modern examples could be Kobe Bryant or Steve Jobs who had plenty of money and fame but were not afforded enough time to enjoy it.  

The takeaway here is that perhaps we shouldn’t spend all of our lives focusing on riches, because God can take them or us away just as quickly as they are gained, and again we are reminded that regardless of how wealthy we are in this world, our graves are still the same size…better to humble ourselves and focus on God rather than we ourselves trying to become demigods by chasing fortune and fame.