Work: For Legacy or Joy?
Receiving work as a gift
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes uses the word “toil” in ways that sound like more than “job” or “career” or “thing I do for income.” He seems to use this word more broadly to mean what we put our energy toward in this world.
On this topic, the end of Ecclesiastes 2 focuses on a pointed question: Why do we toil? In answering this question, he, unsurprisingly, identifies one reason that is “vanity” and one that is “from the hand of God.”
His Days Are Full of Sorrow
The Preacher hated his toil because he would eventually have to leave the fruit of it to others. Yes, the finiteness of life plays a major role in how the Preacher thinks about about work in addition to wisdom.1
There are two main problems with leaving life’s work to another, according to the Preacher. First, we don’t know whether our successor will be wise or a fool (Eccl 2:19). This ambiguity can be maddening, since this person will be the “master” of all for which we toiled. Additionally, there is the sheer vanity of someone coming after us who will enjoy what they did not work for (Eccl 2:21). The Preacher labels this not only as “vanity” but “a great evil” (Eccl 2:21).
This meditation on work provokes harsh words from the Preacher! He “hated all his toil,” and he gave his “heart up to despair;” a man’s return for his toil is days which are “full of sorrow” with work “a vexation” such that “in the night his heart does not rest” (Eccl 2:18–23).
When the Preacher asks what a man has to gain from all his toil (Eccl 2:22), the clear answer is: nothing.2
Enjoyment From the Hand of God
And yet, there is another, better perspective on work the Preacher has to offer.
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)
Ideally, we will find “enjoyment” in our toil. God gives this as a gift, as there is no enjoyment in toil apart from the Almighty.
In reading Ecclesiastes, I’ve found a helpful framing from David Gibson: gain or gift?3 This framing helps me understand what the Preacher is up to at the end of this chapter when he seems to talk about work in two different ways.
When we work for gain—that is, when we work to be remembered or with a fixation on what will become of our work—we are striving after wind. This is misguided and foolish, since we will be forgotten (Eccl 2:16) and our work will pass to others. However, when we see work as a gift from God, we can begin to enjoy it.
Like so many other aspects of life, the key to joy in Ecclesiastes is receiving each role or activity from God. We honor God best (and thus enjoy life most) when we treat each area of life in the way that God intended. We will not live forever, and our work will not live forever; accepting and embracing these truths opens up the path toward enjoying our work now.
Pleasing God
The Preacher ends this discourse on work with a caveat. God does not give everyone joy in their work.
For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:26)
God only gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to those who please him. The sinner gets something quite different.
This raises a natural question: who is it that pleases God? For the original audience listening to Ecclesiastes, the answer would have been clear: those who love God and keep his law please him.
So, if you feel frustration in your work, if you would like to find more joy in what you give your energy to in this world, the Preacher would direct your attention to your obedience to God’s law. And if you find yourself not quite measuring up to the standard of God’s law, join the club.4
Jesus became man and lived in perfect accord with all of God’s righteous rules. The good news of the gospel means that Jesus’s obedience is credited to all those who trust in him. God is pleased with those who put their faith in Jesus.
These frustrations that the Preacher unearths are universal. They point to a planet which is cursed and discordant. And yet, the Bible testifies that there is a Savior given to the world as well.
The humble posture of the believer is to confess our sins and receive the Savior. The Preacher’s teaching on receiving one’s work as a gift points those with ears to hear in this same direction.
One could argue that death shapes much if not all of the Preacher’s teaching in this book.
It’s easy to imagine a lovingly-tended garden being plowed under by the next owners of your house. It’s harder to imagine the organizations, places, causes, and people we give our energy to falling apart when we’re gone. We have no guarantee that even the best things we do in our lives will continue after our deaths.
David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End, 2017, Crossway.
Our club is very large.
Excellent! Very well laid out and encouraging! I especially love your notes at the bottom!
Another good thing about our loving, amazing, compassionate “large club” is that there are no monetary dues!