"What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. . . . That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God" (Ecclesiastes 3:9-11,13).


Why celebrate Labor Day? I am not against taking the first Monday of September off. But my question is more basic. Why celebrate Labor Day when there seems to be no purpose to our labor? Why should we work so hard?

Is our work meaningless?

This is not the question of a slacker. King Solomon asked it long before us. King Solomon built houses, planted vineyards, and built water systems. He was not looking for an easy way out. But in Ecclesiastes he looked at life “under the sun” and concluded, “Meaningless! Meaningless! . . . Everything is meaningless” (1:2).

We work hard. We gain possessions. For what? We all die. And we will leave the fruit of our hard work to someone else. “What does the worker gain from his toil?”

There is another thing. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die” (3:1,2). God has already made his plans. We can’t change them. So why work so hard?

God makes our work meaningful

Solomon gives us the answer. God “has made everything beautiful in its time.” By God’s grace we know the purpose behind God’s time setting. God’s purpose for this world is that he wants “all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

We may not understand why he grants outward success to our labors one year and causes us to experience financial disaster the next. But we do understand this: the God who sets the times sent the promised Savior for us and works out everything for the good of his church. Because of that, we know that everything is beautiful according to God’s plan.

The goal of our labor is not to change God’s beautiful plan, but to be a participant in that plan. We labor to fulfill the plan that our loving God has already determined—to use the fruits of our labor to provide for ourselves, for others, for our church. Knowing we are part of his master plan gives us satisfaction in our labor.