Labor

[For context, read Ecclesiastes 5 and 6.]

We work so hard, don't we? We spend decades earning and saving money and stuff, preparing for all our 'golden years' of retirement, the time when we can finally do what we really want to do.

At the end of the day, though, that mindset is exactly the problem. The author of Ecclesiastes makes it very clear that if all our efforts are merely for "the mouth," then they will not last. That is, if all the hard work we put in is for temporary, vain pleasures, then we are wasting our time pursuing things that don't last for eternity and don't satisfy the soul.

It occurs to me that in seeking the so-called 'American dream,' we have unthinkingly perpetuated this kind of living. We have settled for finding satisfaction in a life well-lived...for ourselves. We have gotten comfortable with and encouraged the blatant, satanic lie that if we can have just a little more, we'll be satisfied. The basis of this problem, though, is that nothing satisfies the soul except God. Nothing brings the peace that passes all understanding except God. Nothing makes our lives worthwhile except for God. And nothing will last except that which is found in God.

I don't mean to say that having possessions or working hard and working well is bad, or even that planning for the future is bad.

But, then again, maybe I am. A little.

Possessions and work and planning for the future are not inherently bad things. After all, the Bible clearly teaches that God graciously gives to His children and that we are to be wise stewards of those things (Gen. 1, Prov. 31, and so many others). But how often do we treat them as we should? If you are honest, which is more likely: that you use those things for your own glory and your own purposes? Or that you use them to honor and glorify God?

Are you more likely to idolize the gift or worship the Giver?

I fear (at least in the Western Church) that we have allowed this idea to grow, and perhaps even encouraged it to flourish, in order that we might "help" the church grow and "help" the kingdom of God grow.

God doesn't need our help. He allows it.

Instead of "helping," though, it seems much more often we become satisfied with these vain pursuits themselves. As if anything but God could truly satisfy.

So, take an inventory. Check your heart and your motivation for all the things you do and seek after, for all the things you're storing up here on earth. Is it for God? Or is it really just for yourself?

If it is for God, good! The man who recognizes that all his possessions are a gracious gift from the Father is given the ability to enjoy them - because his satisfaction is in the Giver, not the gift. (Ecc. 5:18-20)

If it is for yourself, then God has something else to say. Using some rather graphic imagery, the author of Ecclesiastes says that seeking satisfaction in the gift, rather that the Giver, is so inevitably dissatisfying and pointless that it is better to have been miscarried in the womb. That seems wildly inappropriate, and yet it drives home the painful point:

Life has no purpose apart from God.

"All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet his desire is not satisfied." (Ecc. 6:7) Why? Because he labors to pursue the gift, rather than to please the Giver.

Would you live as though you had never been born?
Or would you live a life of purpose and meaning?

Then begin to view all things as graciously from God and use them generously for God.

In this alone will your soul find rest from your labor.

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That you might know Christ,