What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.
Work is frustrating.
“What gain has the worker from his toil?”
The word for “toil” in the Hebrew here covers more than simply work. It suggests intensive labor, trouble, and even suffering. In other words, the assumption imbedded in this introductory question is that our work is fundamentally broken.
Experientially, this probably comes as no surprise. We know that work is frustrating. Even when our work is going well, we never quite feel at rest in it. The Bible tells us that our work is frustrating because it’s cursed. It tells us that because of our rebellion at the dawn of time, God declared, “Through painful toil you will eat…all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:17).
In other words, no matter your task list this morning, or what new job offers soon come your way, or what profession you ultimately choose, you will not like all your work some days or some of your work all days. It is not true, as the old saying goes, that if you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.
According to the Bible, even the best job, the best career, the most compatible work is inherently frustrating and painful. And there’s no easy answer for it. We cannot dodge the frustration.
We are part of the problem.
“I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end.”
This is a confusing section, but here is a basic paraphrase:
It seems that most of what God has given us to do is busywork. Much of our work seems dull, trivial, and perhaps even pointless. But God is beautifying it all—yes, even spreadsheets, e-mail exchanges, and loads of laundry. All of our work belongs to Him and lives on connected to the glory of His eternal purposes. However, God has left us in the dark. Limited by time and yet longing for eternity, we cannot see how the two dimensions are joined. God has hidden the details of how our daily work connects to enduring beauty and significance.
The implicit moral imperative, then, is that we must work in faith, trusting God with what we cannot see. We must do all of our work in light of God’s promise to make it beautiful, resisting the urge to move through life as though our work and worship are unrelated. Just because the connection is hidden does not mean that it’s absent.
God is at work in our work.
God takes broken work and broken workers and sanctifies them both, making them beautiful in time. What does this mean for us?
If God can turn an instrument of failure and death into a piece of jewelry now, and into the center of His Kingdom for all eternity, then He can do something significant for your ordinary work today. He can make your work beautiful in its time. Enjoy it. Do it well. Do it in faith. Do it with thanksgiving.