Is your job too small for your spirit?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Selfcare”

Our Bible verse for today: “What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?” Ecclesiastes 1:3 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Is your job too small for your spirit?”

The primary purpose the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes sought to achieve was to get us to consider if all our toil in life, along with our relentless pursuit of accumulating wealth and possessions, is really the thing that will gain for us a rewarding and fulfilling life. The book is twelve long chapters of cynicism, complaint, and criticism, interwoven with pearls of wisdom and thought-provoking insights.

The grand conclusion of it all however, when taken in its totality, is that the best life any person can have is a balanced life lived under the Lordship of God. As chapter three explains, there is an appropriate season and time for every activity under heaven.

One of the lessons we should learn from Ecclesiastes is the futility of placing too much importance on our jobs. That’s the point Solomon was making in verse 1:3 (above). Now, let me be quick to say that jobs are important and they are Biblical. It was God’s idea for us to work and to be productive in society, and the Bible commands us to do so. But many of us place too much emphasis on work, to the point that the rest of life gets out of balance.

Worse still, many of us have jobs that we dislike and which are unfulfilling. That’s tragic because we spend so much of our time (so much of our life) at work. In 1974 the researcher and author Studs Terkel published a groundbreaking book entitled “Working”. It was a series of interviews with more than 100 workers in different fields. The purpose of the research was to discover how satisfied, or dissatisfied, the average American worker is with his or her job.

Terkel reported, “For many, there is discontent. The blue-collar blues is no more bitterly sung than the white-collar moan. “I’m a machine” says the spot-welder. “I’m caged,” says the bank teller, and echoes the hotel clerk. “I’m a mule,” says the steelworker. “A monkey can do what I do,” says the receptionist. “I’m less than a farm implement,” says the migrant worker. “I’m an object,” says the high-fashion model.”

Terkel concluded, “Most of us … have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.” A job by itself (no matter how important or successful), is not the most meaningful measure of a person’s life. There must be other things in life that are more important to us and more meaningful. But the problem has only gotten worse in the fifty years sense that book was published. Much worse.

In terms of selfcare, if such a large portion of life is taken up by an activity that creates distress rather than fulfillment, what kind of quality of life can we expect a person to have? And what can be done about it? The good news is that there are some options, and we will discuss three of them tomorrow.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

(If you like what you’re reading in these daily devotionals, and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

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