Nothing Better
Last week in West Texas, I sat under a wide sky with a man named Lukas.
We were at the ranch, a group of men gathered from different places and stories, all there to step back from the noise and look at life with a little more clarity (or at least try). I wrote a little about my Fifty Hours in West Texas last week. My friend Trevor had invited me, and when I arrived at his house, he mentioned someone he really wanted me to meet. “You’ll love Lukas,” he said. “He’s a fount of wisdom. Any time you get with him, you’ll enjoy.”
Man, was he right.
When the sun hit its highest point on Thursday afternoon and the air went still, we retreated into the big living room of the main house. High ceilings, stone walls, leather chairs, and a ridiculous number of mounts that had seen their share of stories. It was there, in the cool quiet of that room, that Trevor asked Lukas to share a piece of his story.
What he shared has not left me.
Lukas spoke softly, without hurry. The kind of voice that makes you lean in. He told us that he’d lost his wife of twenty-four years. Just like that, half his life, all his plans, gone.
He said that after the funeral, when the casseroles stopped coming and the house fell silent, he found himself unable to think, unable to pray. He reached for the only thing that seemed honest enough to hold his grief: the book of Ecclesiastes.
He spent a full year there, journaling verse by verse, letting that ancient poetry do what logic and sympathy couldn’t.
“I needed words that made sense when nothing in my world did,” he said.
And somehow, that’s what Ecclesiastes gave him. Not answers, but company.
Ecclesiastes is not a book you read to feel better. It’s a book of paradoxes, of vapor and futility and the ache of trying to make sense of our life under the sun. It was written by a poet-philosopher who had tasted everything-wisdom, wealth, power, pleasure-and found it all wanting.
It’s brutally honest. Which is why, when your world cracks open, it’s likely one of the few books that still feels true.
Lukas said he began to see a rhythm in it: five refrains that repeated throughout the poetry. Some have called them the “Carpe Diem” passages. Each time, the writer would describe the limits of life, the chasing of wind, the mystery of God, and then pivot with the same phrase:
“There is nothing better than…”
It’s almost shocking in its simplicity. After pages of despair and futility, this ancient voice says: stop striving. Receive what’s in front of you. These are five gifts, beyond which there is nothing better.
I think Lukas called them “the anchors that held when the storm had nothing left to take.”
I can’t stop thinking about them.
Gift 1: Feast with Friends
Lukas said the first gift mentioned again and again is to feast with friends.
“There’s something holy about the table,” he said. “It’s not just about the nourishment of the food, but from the presence of others.”
He told us how, after his wife died, he could barely make himself eat. Everything tasted wrong. But slowly, friends began inviting him over, casual dinners, simple meals, no grand speeches, just presence. And over time, those meals became a kind of quiet salvation.
The poet of Ecclesiastes says, ‘There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.’
It’s not about indulgence. It’s about embodiment.
There’s something sacred in sharing food when you have no appetite, in sitting with people who don’t need to fix you. Every bite, every story, every shared silence becomes proof that life continues.
When Lukas said that, I thought about all the tables in my own life. The laughter, the spilled drinks, the way simple food can hold so much grace.
The table is where eternity brushes up against the ordinary.
Gift 2: Do Some Good
The second gift is to do some good (I’d add at work).
Ecclesiastes says, ‘There is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot.’
That word “lot” has always struck me as a little odd. In this context, “lot” doesn’t mean one’s luck or one’s curse. I think it simply means portion. The piece of life that’s been entrusted to you.
It’s the work that’s yours to do, not someone else’s. The ground under your feet. The relationships, responsibilities, and moments that make up your slice of the story.
It’s not glamorous. It’s not destiny or calling. It’s just what’s in front of you. The thing that needs doing.
Doing good doesn’t always mean saving the world. Sometimes it’s showing up for your family. Sometimes it’s taking care of what’s yours. Sometimes it’s finishing the thing you said you would, even when it’s hard.
Gift 3: Enjoy Your Partner
The third gift: Enjoy your partner.
Lukas smiled when he said it, one of those smiles that’s half joy, half ache. “I enjoyed her,” he said quietly. “Not perfectly, but well. I’m proud of that.”
Then he read from Ecclesiastes: ‘Enjoy life with the wife (partner) whom you love, all the days of your fleeting life that He has given you under the sun.’
He said he used to read that verse differently, like it was a nudge toward romance, or appreciation. Now he reads it as a warning and a mercy.
“You never know how fleeting your days are,” he said. “So if you’ve got someone to enjoy, do it. Fully. Foolishly. Today.”
There was a long silence after that. You could feel everyone in the room thinking about someone they loved, or maybe someone they’d lost. I teared up, considering Rachel.
Lukas shared the following with all of us a few days later: A shared life with a spouse is one of the great joys of being human. Ecclesiastes reminds us that love isn’t just about emotion, it’s about presence, partnership, and delighting in the days we’ve been given together. Through seasons of growth, loss, and ordinary routines, we are invited to walk closely, to laugh freely, and to carry one another. In loving our partner well, we build something that endures, even as the world around us changes.
Gift 4: Share Your Stuff
The fourth gift is to share what you have.
After his wife passed, Lukas said his house felt like a museum. Every object a reminder, every room too still.
Ecclesiastes says, “It is good and fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun, the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil, this is the gift of God.”
That word again, “lot.” What’s yours to hold, for a time.
Lukas said, “We think joy comes from getting, but it’s actually from releasing.”
Possessions aren’t bad. They’re just temporary. When we hold them too tightly, they end up holding us. But when we open our hands, our time, money, presence, stuff, we remember that everything we have is borrowed grace.
And grace is meant to be shared.
Gift 5: Opt for Joy
The fifth and final gift is to opt for joy.
Not joy as in vapid cheerfulness. Joy as in defiance.
Lukas said, “Joy doesn’t come naturally after loss. You have to choose it like breathing.”
He told us that every morning, he writes down one thing he can still thank God for. “Some days it’s the sunrise,” he said. “Some days it’s just breath.”
It reminded me that joy is a spiritual posture, not a mood.
The poet says, “So I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.”
Joy, Lukas said, “isn’t denial—it’s resistance.” A kind of humble acceptance that the world is both broken and beautiful, and that gratitude is the only sane response to both.
It’s choosing joy when you have every reason not to.
After he finished speaking, the room was silent. Not the awkward kind, the sacred kind. The kind that lingers when truth has landed somewhere deep.
I’ve thought about that afternoon every day since. About how wisdom sometimes comes wrapped in grief. About how the oldest poetry in the world can still speak directly into modern pain.
And about how, when everything else is stripped away, maybe those five gifts are what we’re left with:
To feast with friends.
To do some good.
To enjoy your partner.
To share your stuff.
To opt for joy.
There’s nothing better.
It’s not my insight—it’s Lukas’. It’s Ecclesiastes’s. I’m just passing it along because it won’t leave me.
In a world obsessed with progress and permanence, these simple gifts feel like rebellion. They remind us that eternity has already been placed in our hearts, and that, for now, this is enough.
PS: If someone is reading this who is dealing with grief and loss, Lukas wrote a number of personal reflections about losing Gretchen, and the resources he found helpful along the way. He has also offered to speak to anyone who might be interested. Please let me know if you’d like to be directly connected to him. It’d be an honor to make the introduction.