Read
17This made me hate life. Everything we do is painful; it's just as senseless as chasing the wind.
18Suddenly I realized that others would someday get everything I had worked for so hard, then I started hating it all. 19Who knows if those people will be sensible or stupid? Either way, they will own everything I have earned by hard work and wisdom. It doesn't make sense.
20I thought about all my hard work, and I felt depressed. 21When we use our wisdom, knowledge, and skill to get what we own, why do we have to leave it to someone who didn't work for it? This is senseless and wrong. 22What do we really gain from all of our hard work? 23 Our bodies ache during the day, and work is torture. Then at night our thoughts are troubled. It just doesn't make sense.
24 The best thing we can do is to enjoy eating, drinking, and working. I believe these are God's gifts to us, 25and no one enjoys eating and living more than I do. 26 If we please God, he will make us wise, understanding, and happy. But if we sin, God will make us struggle for a living, then he will give all we own to someone who pleases him. This makes no more sense than chasing the wind.
Reflect
No one is his own master. We were born to serve, and serve we do, whether we admit it or not. We sacrifice most of our lives at tasks not of our own choosing, struggling with boredom and exhaustion to pay for shelter, groceries, light and heat. Every adult learns that this is not a choice.
What remains a choice is how we serve, and in who’s name. For when by the grace of God we were redeemed, we were redeemed from all our slaveries. When we choose to serve God with our whole lives, including the mundane workday parts, we become who we are truly meant to be, all day long.
There is no version of the story in which we are our own masters, as the world so desperately tries to convince us. When we serve ourselves we find a deeper and more brutal slavery than any our fellow men could contrive: ruled by our own appetites until all our friends are rivals and all our joys, addictions.
But when we take our place as creations crafted to serve a loving creator, we discover what freedom is: becoming what you were intended to be. When we realize that, we find every part of our lives redeemed. All our labours are suddenly holy: the oil change we perform, the diaper we change, the school hallway we wax become little icons of his face and little cathedrals to his name. In the purr of the renewed engine and the slumber of the clean baby are the song of the Christ who takes the stained and makes them new, and his face is seen in every polished floor.
Respond
Dear God, You have made the earth and you care for your creation, and you have chosen to give us a role in the work you are doing in it. Please help me to see my work as service to you, and please use it for your glory. In Christ’s name, Amen.
Mike Bonikowsky
Mike Bonikowsky began looking at books as soon as he could sit up. Eventually he learned to read them, and has not been able to stop. One day he realized that people wrote the words in the books, and he began to write his own. He has not been able to stop that either. He lives with his wife and child in Melancthon Township, Ontario, where he writes his words in the basement.