Consider the Lillies

I just finished Ecclesiastes and I find it one of the most elusive and strangest books of the Bible. All is vanity!
In a way, that statement offers relief. Sometimes I get this pressure of all I must do and of all I need to become, but in the end, the whole world is vanity. It will soon pass away. I don't think God wants us so much to do, as he does for us to be. For example, consider the stars, they just are! They are what God intended for them to be: expressing His glory & ministering to us as shining lights. They don't try to be the moon or a planet. Take the flower also for an example; how ridiculous would it be for a flower to try to be a tree or a cactus? A flower just is and is beautiful. All it was made to do is to look beautiful, give off a lovely fragrance, and bring happiness to those who behold it.
In the same way, people (& I am the first to admit!) can be striving to be more or other than God intended. Our hearts can be in the right place, but we may put so much pressure on others or ourselves, striving and straining, as if we are of imminent importance to the continuation of good.
"Be still, and know that I [am] God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."- Psalm 46:10  (basically, with or without you and I, God will be just as exalted).
I think God just wants me to be. To be what He created me to be; to fulfill the purposes unique for my life. A flower just abides: it drinks water and basks in the sun, and blossoms for all to enjoy. The flower perfumes the earth just being what it was made to be, so effortlessly and refreshingly. Like this flower, God wants me to simply abide in Jesus: drinking from His rivers of living water, basking in and reflecting His light, feeding from His words of life. Any more than this and I am striving. Whatever fruit God brings from my life can never come apart from abiding. Simply abide and fruit will be the natural consequence, A flower doesn't have to struggle and strive to be a flower, it simply is and blossoms naturally in its time.
"Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD."- Psalm 31:24 God will finish the work he started in us and our fruit will be as natural as the shinning of the stars.