Eccl 1:2-11 / Lk 9:7-9
Recent studies indicate that most Americans are working harder than they have in the past. More of us are taking work home from the office and more of us are taking shorter and shorter vacations. The economy is doing well, but too many of us never seem to catch up. Too many people are asking what happened to the better quality of life that was just around the corner?
There will come a day when the desk at which we’ve worked for so long will be discarded or occupied by someone else. And the day will come too when the house we’ve lovingly made into a home will belong to someone else for whom we are no more than a name, or more likely, just “the people who lived here before us.”
What will there be left to show for all our struggling and striving? File drawers full of canceled checks and paid bills? A stack of bank and brokerage account statements? What will be left that matters? Only the consequences of the deeds of love, that is, people’s lives changed for the better and our own hearts transformed in the process.
That’s all we get for a lifetime lived at our best, but it’s all we need to take home to our Father. Be clear about that and be content.