Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes' Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness

WINNER OF THE CHRISTIANITY TODAY BOOK AWARD AND THE GOSPEL COALITION BOOK AWARD • How can you be happy? Who can show you the path to happiness? Pastor Bobby Jamieson shatters our illusions of what will make us happy and blazes a surprisingly simple trail to resilient joy.

“Bobby Jamieson brings an ancient text to bear on the challenge of living fully. The result is fresh, direct, and enlivening.”—Matthew B. Crawford, New York Times bestselling author of Shop Class as Soul Craft

Does it feel like you should be happy, and want to be happy, and try to be happy, but somehow you just can’t be happy? One way to be unhappy is not getting what you most want. Another way is to get all you could possibly want…only to discover that everything is not enough.

The writer of Ecclesiastes did it all. He had money, education, possessions, sex, and power—everything the modern world promises will bring joy—and yet he was never satisfied. And from his discontent, we benefit and find a surprisingly simple trail to lasting joy.

In this thoughtful exploration of Ecclesiastes, which speaks to all of us who feel restless and unfulfilled, Pastor Bobby Jamieson:

• teaches us how placing life on an eternal horizon empowers us to experience joy no matter our circumstances
• puts Ecclesiastes into dialogue with profoundly insightful critics of modernity to show that life in the modern West is a conveyor belt toward burnout
• helps us dismantle our false hopes one by one, clearing ground for true satisfaction

Poetic yet straightforward, philosophical yet accessible, Everything Is Never Enough frees us to stop grasping at broken promises and start receiving life as a gift of God’s grace.

Bobby Jamieson is a widely respected pastor, scholar, and award-winning author. Originally from San Francisco, Bobby began a career as a jazz saxophonist before redirecting into pastoral ministry. He has degrees from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he taught Greek and New Testament. Bobby served as an associate pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., before moving with his wife and their four kids to plant a church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.