Toil

DEVOTION

ECCLESIASTES

TOIL

Eccl 3:9-14

9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil — this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

NIV

We should include the rest of this chapter as it is the continuation of this thought, but there is enough here for us to ponder on.  To work has been the burden God placed on man because of the disobedience of Adam. When he cast him out of the Garden of Eden he told him that he would have to work all the days of his life.

Gen 3:17-19

17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

NIV

There is also more in this which Solomon will draw on in the next few of his statements we will get to. But there is the burden. We have to work, painful toil, all the days of our life until we die and are put back in the ground from which we, man, came from. Was that just for Adam, and the rest of us are not subject to that burden? Because we are descendants of Adam, born in sin in need of redemption, we are subject to the law of God in this regard. It has become through the sinful mind of man that he determined a way to circumvent this burden. Instead of working by the sweat of his brow all the days of his life for his food, he chose to store up as much wealth as he can and then quite his toil, and sit back, get old, doing nothing until he dies and returns to the ground. Then, like Solomon has already noted, all he toiled for is left for someone else to spend, and he does the same thing and the cycle keeps going. But the fact remains we are to toil all the days of our life just because that is what we are to do. But then what do we gain by it? God has given the gift of finding satisfaction in our work. To be content in our work and in the food on our table, and the roof over our head. But also, we have to know that he set the idea of himself, the idea of eternity into the heart of man, into our heart. Man toils and in doing so, without the knowledge of eternity, toils for nothing for it all will end in nothing, just returning to the dust. From the human prescriptive, which Solomon is pondering the only thing man can do is be happy his life. But then God has established everything from the beginning and will sustain everything until the end. He is the Alpha and Omega. Man cannot add to that which God did or does, and man cannot take away anything God has done, is doing and will do. If we can comes to terms with this, then we will revere him. We will come to the realization that we are man and he is God, our creator and redeemer, our Lord and Savior. Then true joy, happiness fills our heart and our toil is not burdensome.