Ecclesiastes // Chasing MeaningSample

“My work is not fulfilling.”

“I don’t see a real purpose in what I do.”

“I want to do something with meaning.”

“I feel like I am just putting in my time.”

Have you ever heard anyone make these statements, or similar ones, about their work? Have you made them yourself? Think about it—40 hours a week, 260 hours a month, 2,080 hours a year, 83,000 hours in a career. That’s almost half your waking hours spent at your job! When we are unfulfilled in our work, we are unfulfilled over a large portion of our lives.

What does the wisest man have to say about work? That’s what we’ll consider this week. We’ll start in the first chapter of Solomon’s journal.

Ecclesiastes 1:3-4

What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.

What does a man gain by engaging in work? What benefits come from marketing, sales, owning a business, designing processes, and making products? Not much! That’s Solomon’s “under-the-sun” perspective. A generation works until they die, followed by the next generation that does the same thing. It’s all meaningless…unless…we see our work from God’s perspective.

Timothy Keller has written a book called Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work. Here’s what he says about a biblical view of work.

Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever.

God has not called us just to put in the time and waste half of our lives on meaningless work. Certainly, we should pursue meaningful work, but work will never be meaningful unless we see it as God’s calling on our lives. When we follow Jesus, everything matters forever.

Father, help us see our work as a calling from you and a way to give service to others and honor you. Remind us that everything we do on this earth matters. In Jesus’ name. Amen.