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A seasoned fighter pilot’s night mission is more than a gripping story—it’s a compass for the moments when life tilts and you can’t trust your senses. We open with that razor-edge image and follow it into the life of Solomon, a king who began with blazing clarity and drifted into darkness before turning back. The question isn’t whether you’re smart or successful; it’s what gauges you trust when the horizon disappears.

We walk through the arc of Solomon’s story: a divine blank check answered with “wisdom,” the bright years of Proverbs and a golden temple, and the slow turn toward divided loves and bored ambition. Ecclesiastes becomes his recovered journal, a field report from “under the sun” that names the ache: vapor, repetition, the lure of newness that isn’t new. Solomon spies out learning, labor, pleasure, and legacy, only to find that when the Giver is ignored, the gifts dissolve in your hands. The line that lingers—what is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted—calls for a realism our age resists.

But the realism is hopeful. If life under the sun is not enough, we can re-center above the sun. We talk about remembering the Creator in youth, why “vanity” means vapor rather than ego, and how Scripture functions like an instrument panel calibrated to reality when emotions, headlines, or habits blur our view. For skeptics, the hollowness you feel is a helpful alarm, not a verdict. For believers, there’s a path back: open the Word, name the drift, realign your course, and recover joy with roots deeper than novelty.

If this conversation helps you see the gauges more clearly, share it with a friend who’s flying through fog, subscribe for more wisdom-rich journeys, and leave a review with the one idea you’re taking into your week. Your story might help someone else pull up in time.

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