Ecclesiastes 4:6 Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.
Not long ago, I went to a car show with my dad, a friend, and one of my sons. It was an amazing car show! We saw lots of antique cars and exotic cars, the Ferrari being my favorite. We saw a 2019 McLaren that listed for $1,299,995 plus tax, title, license, and fees. The tag said that this was a “no haggle” price. I’m not exaggerating or joking, it was over a million dollars. Now, I don’t know that I would even enjoy driving that car. That is not a car; it is an investment. To make a vehicle an investment when it depreciates almost immediately in most cases, is not the thing I would want to do. However, if you have a Ferrari or a McLaren, that is great! The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:13, “It is the gift of God,” and indeed it is.
But, there are a couple of things that we learn from the book of Ecclesiastes that we should consider. Ecclesiastes 4:6 says, “Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.” By the way, this topic, the relative merit of money, is one you find throughout the Proverbs.
Notice some things we can learn about money from this verse in Ecclesiastes. Money and quietness are neither the same nor mutually exclusive. The Bible says, “Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.” So, it does not say that to have money you must have travail, although I think that is often the case. Many people think, “If I have money, I have happiness.” No, money and quietness or peace are neither the same or mutually exclusive. You have to ask yourself which is more likely. Is it more likely to have money and quietness or money and travail?
Proverbs 30:8-9 says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.” There are pitfalls both to being poor and to being wealthy. But money and quietness are not the same thing.
Second, one is a means and one is the end. Money is a means and quietness or travail is the end. Money can be a means either to some form of quietness, maybe financial security, or travail, maybe people arguing over money. One is the means to an end and one is the end itself. The bottom line is blessed are those who can tell the means from the end. Blessed are those who have the smarts to know what is a means to an end and what is the end itself.
Most people think, “I want to have money.” They don’t really want to have money; they want happiness, peace, and joy. They assume that having money means having peace, joy, and quietness, those things for which their soul longs. The irony is that so many times they finally get financial security and instead of leading to peace, it leads to turmoil.
It would be good for all of us to ask the question, “Why am I laboring?” Ecclesiastes 4:8 says, “For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is also a sore travail.” It is vanity to go through life knocking yourself out to make money and not really know the reason for which you are making the money. Am I making money for myself alone? Is it for me and some other person? The Bible tells us that God has given us richly all things to enjoy. We should take as a gift from God every good and pleasant thing in life, but it is vitally important, as we will see in the book of Ecclesiastes, to be able to draw the distinction between the means and the end and to tell the difference between money and the quietness our soul really seeks.