Nothing New Under the Sun

A reminder that wisdom, grit, grace, and love were never ours to invent – only ours to receive and share

#MindsetMonday • 8:20 a.m. May 18, 2026

Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

I’m grateful for my buddy Todd Wright, who introduced me to that verse one evening over a wonderful dinner, and I’ve thought a lot about that verse lately while writing these Mindset Mondays.

The truth is, I’m not creating anything new here. I’m not wise enough to invent perseverance. I didn’t create discipline – geez, I work my tail off attempting (and frequently failing) to exercise it in my own life. I didn’t come up with grit, grace, resilience, forgiveness, faith, or love. God already established those truths long before I set foot on this Earth.

At my absolute best, I’m simply an imperfect person walking the road of life, stumbling through mistakes and victories, carrying scars and lessons, trying to understand timeless truth and rewrite it in a way that might help me and maybe somebody else keep moving forward. That’s all this really is. Nothing more.

These principles weren't mine before me.

They aren't mine now.

They won’t be mine after I’m gone.

Everything I write about has lived in Scripture, conversations, stories, books, sermons, and human hearts for thousands of years. We just keep passing them around to one another, wrapped in new and different packaging. Then, somehow, the exact same message can mean something completely different depending on where a person is in life. Depending on where you are in life. A sentence that barely registers one year can bring you to tears the next. Not because the truth has changed, but because you did.

Suffering softened you.

Failure humbled you.

Love deepened you.

Loss awakened you.

Grace found you.

I think that’s one of the most beautiful parts of God’s design. The truth remains steady while He continues to shape and grow us through life, until our hearts are finally ready to receive it differently.

So if these writings ever encourage you, challenge you, or help you put one foot in front of the other, don’t give me any credit. It was, is, and will always be GOD’s truth. I’m nothing more than another guy putting it into a Word document (which, thankfully, corrects spelling and grammar) and sharing it with anyone willing to read it.

So this week, let’s love one another, encourage one another, be humble, and give all the Glory to the God who gave us the sun and everything under it, a long time ago.