Profit

“What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:9)

I called it feeding the beast. I grew from being just an independent television producer, to owning and operating a full-fledged, turnkey television production studio, with all the equipment, employees, and debt to go along with it. I soon discovered that I had to bring in an exorbitant amount of money and work the time, just to cover costs. I was killing myself to attain zero. That was feeding the beast. It had to be constantly fed to be able to reach the level of break even. The beast had to be fed first before I could start to work on earning money for myself.

King Solomon, the preacher, asks a very good question. “What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?” What gain is there in the blood, sweat, and tears we pour into our labors?

Since the fall, man has been relegated to toilsome work.

“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)

Man must work and sweat just to maintain, just to stay alive. He must toil and expend a lot of effort to feed the beast. But besides subsistence, what profit is there to our work?

Wouldn’t it be prudent to heed Solomon’s advice and determine what profit we gain in the work we do? No, not financial or material profit. We all must eat and have a roof over our heads. I’m talking about human profit, people profit, and divine profit.

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37)

“What profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?” (Ecclesiastes 5:16b)

If all we labor for on this earth is dust in the wind, wouldn’t it be prudent to focus on what isn’t dust, but eternal and divine?

King Solomon, the richest and wisest man on earth at the time, “looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

Solomon brings up a very interesting point. Is what that is driving us, that is motivating us, nothing more than, “vexation of spirit”? Pride can vex our spirit and cause us to do things we really don’t want to do. Guilt, low self-esteem, lust, envy, all these things and more can drive us, propel us to do and to work incessantly at things that in reality, are just pure vanity.

The devil loves to vex our spirit. This is how he controls us, uses us, steer us in the directions he wants. We become useful to him when our spirit is vexed. We can become sinful and even criminal. There isn’t a person behind bars without a vexed spirit that drove them to do whatever crime it is they did.

This is why it is so important to labor with spirit and soul in mind. The peace of Jesus Christ is literally defined as tranquility of soul. The peace of Jesus causes us to be calm and tranquil under all circumstances. Our peace is internal, it is a tranquil soul. It is not dependent upon outward conditions or circumstances.

Ah, now were on to something.

Some folks say do what makes you happy and you’ll never work a day in your life. Here happiness comes in the form of the process. You enjoy what you do. Others have happiness as a goal, something to work for and towards. This happiness is a destination. The destination is usually material such as a house, car, a place, or the time of retirement. The irony of the financial destination is that you kill yourself for 30-40 years, so you won’t have to kill yourself during the waning years of your life.

So, is happiness the profit that we should strive for in our labors? Great philosophers such as Aristotle believed that happiness was the goal and purpose in life. But according to Aristotle, happiness is dependent upon virtue. Virtue was a state between excess and deficiency. Acts of virtue would cause a virtuous man to be happy.

Keep in mind, Aristotle was born almost 400 years before Jesus Christ. His idea for happiness strikes close to the life of a Christian.

When we try to find a thing that makes us happy, that’s working from the outside in. Jesus works from the inside out, so it doesn’t matter what the thing is we do. This is such a release from vexation and allows us to move onto the things that truly profit.

Solomon asks what profit is there in our labor?  We learn that it is all vanity and vexation of spirit. We also learn that peace is tranquility of soul obtained only through Jesus Christ. This peace calms our vexed spirit, settles the heart, and clears the mind. Our point and purpose in life changes. Our will to do and to be, changes. What now, is important?

Jesus was so calm during a raging storm at sea, that he would have slept through it all if it hadn’t been for the panicked disciples waking Him up. A vexed and disquieted spirit is a display of a lack of faith. Jesus asked his disciples upon quieting the seas, “Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?” (Mark 4:40)

This is our Ah-Ha moment! We have a vexed spirit due to a lack of faith and relationship with Christ. We turn to the world for peace and resolution. We look for a way to calm our vexed and disquieted spirit in occupations and vocations. These things afford us some degree of recognition and/or money. Our jobs can be satisfying either directly (you like what you do) or indirectly (you like where this will take you).

But Christ frees us from the turmoil of the toil.

“He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11-13)

The King James Version of the Bible doesn’t make the first part of this message clear. In fact, it can mislead us into thinking the opposite of what is intended. In the above, “he hath set the world in their heart”, the “world” comes from the Hebrew, “`owlam”. It means, “everlasting” or “eternity”.

God has made everything beautiful within God’s time frame, not ours. No man can see God’s work in its entirety, in its full scope, wonder and beauty.

“Though we see not the complete beauty of Providence, yet we shall see it, and a glorious sight it will be, when the mystery of God shall be finished. Then every thing shall appear to have been done in the most proper time and it will be the wonder of eternity. We must wait with patience for the full discovery of that which to us seems intricate and perplexed, acknowledging that we cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end, and therefore must judge nothing before the time. We are to believe that God has made all beautiful. Every thing is done well, as in creation, so in providence, and we shall see it when the end comes, but till then we are incompetent judges of it.” (Matthew Henry)

We are to rejoice and to do good in his life. (See, Aristotle wasn’t too far off the mark!) without a vexed spirit. God wants us to, “eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour”. This is the gift of God. We can only do this through Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, also a gift from God.

Bill Hitchcock