Do we idolize work? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Today, we’re looking at two verses from Ecclesiastes 4:
7 Again, I saw vanity under the sun: 8 one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.
Let’s start with talking about feminism. Many women today have been bought a lie that says that they can have everything that a man has the same way. They just have to make the sacrifice of not having children in the sake of pursuing a career. News flash. Men and women are different. A man can father children all throughout his lifetime. A woman has a certain limited timeframe and too many women are putting off children in the name of pursuing a career and then finding later on when they are alone that they regret it.
After all, you have the career and then…..what? What do you have to show after that? This does not mean that all men or women have to get married and have children to have a positive impact on the world, but if you are pursuing a career just for the sake of a career, you are selling yourself short.
Meanwhile, if you have riches and no one after you, why are you putting in all this work? Why not indeed kick back and enjoy your life? Let someone else take over the reins of your company, have enough to live on, and take time to enjoy the world that God created. In our country today, we often think we have to be working to be doing something productive.
I have a substack that I encourage you all to subscribe to called The Gaming Theologian and I recently wrote this piece. In it, I wrote about the death of George Wendt, most famous for playing Norm Peterson on Cheers. I contended that while Wendt could likely say the most important thing he did in his life was be a husband and a father, if someone thought his life was not used since he gave it to acting, they would be wrong. Wendt was part of a field that gave us stories, several small stories that turned out to be part of a larger story about a simple neighborhood tavern. Those stories united us so much that for the series finale, 93 million people tuned in.
Work, but make sure you know what you are working for. Do not work just for the sake of work. Your true identity is not to be found in your work. Your true identity is to be found in Christ. If all you do is work and then have no one to pass it on to, someone else will take what you worked all your life on and you will be forgotten in the sands of history.
Next time, we will look at one of my favorite topics, friendship.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)