![[Photo of a Scripture verse]](https://www.deankwilson.com/Blog_images/Ecclesiastes_2_22.jpg)
| “What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun?” |
| —Ecclesiastes 2:22 |
Have you ever worked very hard and, at the end of the workday, felt that you accomplished nothing?
When I was a student at Houghton College in western New York state, some friends asked me to drive them to a little town about twenty miles south of the college. They had agreed to unload some railroad cars.
Upon our arrival, the four of them went to work unloading 75-pound bags of cement. The boxcar probably held several hundred bags. I was not invited to help. In fact, because they didn’t want to share their wages with me, I was forbidden to help.
Quarter-hour after quarter-hour, they unloaded the boxcar. It was a very warm spring day. They soon soaked their tee shirts with sweat. Bag after bag, they kept unloading. After about seventy-five minutes, they still had a quarter of the boxcar to unload. They were tired and had begun to think better of this task.
Just as they finished unloading the boxcar, a truck drove up. In it was the man who had hired them. “I see you’ve got one car unloaded,” he said. “You realize there are three more cars, right?”
Sure enough, the car they had unloaded was flanked by two cars on the left and one car on the right. Each car was full to the top with bags of cement. I think my friends nearly fainted when they realized the task was only one-quarter completed.
As they started on the second car, I told them I would be back in a few hours. I drove back to the College, worked for about three-and-a-half hours, and drove back to the job site. It was now about seven o’clock in the evening. Fortunately, Daylight Savings Time was in force.
When I arrived, they still had about one-third of the final car to go. To say that they were dragging would be an understatement. They were thoroughly tired and very discouraged. In a little less than an hour later, with a great deal of struggle, they finished unloading the final boxcar. They wearily got into my car and we headed back to the College.
The next morning, all four of them were so sore and so tired that they vehemently stated they would never undertake such a task again. Never, ever, under any circumstances would they work so hard for so little wages. When they finally totaled up their “take” for the day, they found that each of them had earned about a dollar and twenty-five cents an hour. Now this was way back in 1967. But, even so, that was far too little money for such an investment of time and energy.
King Solomon understood their plight. In the Scripture passage for today, he continues the questioning at the end of his life, as we have been sharing with you over the past few days. Notice what he wrote, as recorded in Ecclesiastes 2:17-23:
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless.
So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.
Sometimes we invest a great deal of time and effort into a task only to have the next person who takes up that task squander all our hard work. I have a friend who manages a cemetery. When he took over, the recordkeeping was horrible. He spent months and months straightening out a mess that had accumulated over thirty years. In the last twelve years that he has managed the cemetery, he has created systems and procedures to keep the records up to date and the management of the facility moving along like a well-oiled machine.
But, my friend is now in his mid-eighties. He realizes that he will die relatively soon. He fears that, once he is gone, no one will devote the time and energy to the recordkeeping into which he has invested so much of his time and effort. He imagines that soon after he dies, the records will again be in serious disarray.
That’s how Solomon felt. And yet, in considering the work of our hands—work that God has given us to do, as a part of His great plan for our lives—we must accept the reality that we are only responsible for our part. We cannot take responsibility for what has gone on before us and what will come after us.
It’s good for us to recognize, as we begin another new day, that the measure of the value and success of our labor comes from God. Our role is to faithfully serve Him in whatever way He opens up before us. We are judged by our faithfulness. And, our labor for Him is never, ever, in vain.
