Ecclesiastes 2:18 Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me
Not too long ago my wife and I went to the house where my she grew up. She lived there pretty much her entire girlhood. Her parents have since moved out to be closer to us and other family. The people who bought the house from her parents are doing a fine job. It is not bad, but it is not quite what it was. My mother and father-in-law are very industrious, tidy, neat, and organized. They made something out of that land. They planted an orchard, a garden, and built some outbuildings. They kept things as tidy as a pin. The family that is there now is a warm, loving family with kids and all the mess that comes with having an active family, which of course is a blessing. What I am saying is that it would be easy to go back to something you put so much time and effort into and think, “Wow, people haven’t kept it up or capitalized on all the care and money that I put into it.”
Proverbs 24:30-31 says, “I went by the field of the slothful…it was all grown over with thorns.” We all know the experience of putting effort and labor into something, then coming back later and finding the person who has come after us has not kept it up to our satisfaction. This is an old problem. In Ecclesiastes 2:18 Solomon says, “Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.” None of us know who will be after us and how they will take care of the work we’ve done.
Verse 19 says, “And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.” In verse 21 he continues, “For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity: yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.” So, there is this feeling that you have done all this work, and now what has happened? If you stopped all the work you planned for today, what would happen? Maybe nothing would happen, or maybe it would be disastrous.
Recently on the Ranch we have been having a time with a major hot water heater on one of our residences. We have tried everything. I’m sure we will get it worked out, but if we just dropped that ball today, there would be absolute disaster. So, what would happen if you stopped your work today? It could be disaster.
What if you stopped your work for a long time, for ten years or a hundred years? In a hundred years we may not even need hot water heaters. What I am saying is that the short game and the long game, if you are talking about a hundred years, have a lot in common because the work you do today may be urgent, but in a hundred years it won’t matter. What is eternal is what matters. Now, will work on a hot water heater matter in eternity? Well, it may not matter directly, but it may well be that the things I am doing today, the people I am influencing, will matter.
The only labor that will last is fixed in heaven. Anything that is done here, no matter how good it may be, is not going to last any longer than the earth. Nothing of glass or steel in our great cities will last eons of time. The only thing that has lasted the eons of time seems to be the materials made by God himself, stone and other natural elements that have been built into the pyramids, great temples, and so on. The bottom line is that the only labor that will last is fixed in heaven.
So, I have two suggestions. First, just enjoy the here and now that God has given you. I Timothy 6:17 says that we are not to be absorbed by money, the love of money is the root of all evil, but he says, “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God.” Uncertain is riches; living is God. It continues, “Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.”
So, I don’t live for things, but I ought to enjoy the things that God gives me. Ecclesiastes 2:24 says, “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.” When the Bible says that God has given us richly all things to enjoy, it goes on to say, “Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” Literally it says, “That they may lay hold on the life that is real.” So, enjoy the here and now, but include eternity and heaven into your day by including God.
Second, work beyond the here and now. You follow your predecessor, but your work will follow you. Revelation 14:13 says, “And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” So, when I am resting in heaven, my work on this earth will follow me if it is significant at all.
You may not see any eternal consequence in pounding a nail, punching a keyboard, or talking to a child. There may not be direct, intrinsic value to that thing, but that thing may connect to things that are vital. So, does the hot water heater at the Ranch matter in eternity? To some extent yes, because it helps us do the work that we are doing to get out the gospel on the Bill Rice Ranch. Maybe your work is not gospel-oriented, but you can be gospel-oriented.
Connect what you are doing to the bigger picture. C. T. Studd wrote, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.” Whether you are a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, whether you are in ministry or secular work, make your life count by doing things along with your duties that will have significance into eternity because whether people see those, big or small, whether your work lasts five years after you are dead or not, what will last forever is the work of eternal consequence, work that includes God in the doing of it.