Ecclesiates 4:4-7 (Some)

⁴ And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

⁵ Fools fold their hands
    and ruin themselves.
⁶ Better one handful with tranquillity
    than two handfuls with toil
    and chasing after the wind

I had the opportunity to visit a local church other than my home church last week while I was nannying (also the reason I haven't posted for a little while).  The pastor was kicking off a sermon series on "Surviving Success."  He said how churches so often talk about all the bad things going on in our lives and how to live for Christ in the midst of those difficult things (which is an important topic for sure), but how we rarely talk about what to do when we are successful!  He reminded us that often we do better when we are failing yet relying on God than when we're succeeding and thinking that we can do this thing without Him.

For much of his kick-off sermon for this topic, he talked about work.  As we will have seen in Ecclesiastes.  Remember Chapter 2?...

²⁴ A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God...

Again in Chapter 3...

¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.
And again: ²² So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot.

Finding satisfaction in our work is part of the plan.  Work is part of His plan for us. 

But it's not the whole plan.  Work was still never meant to become our "ultimate".  To keep our work in its proper place, we must remember that we are doing it for God.  Our jobs, our volunteer activities, our chores at home...in all work we do, we honor Him.

Solomon reminds us in today's verses that most men are motivated to succeed because of their envy.  

⁴ And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

We want to compete with our friends and neighbors and the stranger who lives in the huge house down the street.  But if that's the reason we do our work, the only product we will produce is more envy.  There will be no satisfaction.  It will be meaningless.  Because even if you are able to buy that big house someday, you will quickly find that the big house doesn't fill the hole you thought it would.  Yes, I'd say that's meaningless!

Then he reminds us about the other side of the coin.  The man who looks at all these people running around and working so hard and striving for achievement and success, and he says, Look at all of them running around like that!  What a waste of energy.  They probably won't even get what they want anyway.  Why would I ever do that?  I'd much prefer to sit on my couch and watch T.V.  To this man, Solomon says,

⁵ Fools fold their hands
    and ruin themselves.

Let us not swing the pendulum too far, my friends!  We don't want to just sit back and "wait" for something to come to us either.  This hits home for me -- I'm not one who is a natural go-getter.  I mean, I made my sister sell my girl scout cookies for me for heaven's sake!

So I'm not a sales woman.  That's okay!  There is other work I can do -- work that I do enjoy much more than selling things.  But I'm still learning that I can't just sit back and wait for things.  That's not being selfish -- that's what we're called to do!  Or we will come to ruin.  Being a "sluggard" is a slow suicide.

So just to make sure the "All or Nothing" types heard him, Solomon says it one more time:

⁶ Better one handful with tranquillity
    than two handfuls with toil
    and chasing after the wind

One handful.  Some.  Some will bring you peace.  We don't need all, and we aren't meant to be okay with nothing if we're able to work. 

Knowing I put in a good day's work is a wonderful feeling.  Being completely wiped out at the end of the day because I tried to do it ALL -- that leads to more stress.

So I'm going to do what I can to enjoy my work.  I'll work hard.  But I do not want to try to do it all, and I don't need to have it all.  I just want some.  And what I do and what I may earn, I want to remember the Source.  He is my motivation.  He is the reason I do what I do.



Molly Monroe