Work Hard, Play Hard?
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, Ecclesiastes 2:24 ESV
Toil – “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.” Ah, the naiveté of those seven dwarfs in the Disney classic, Snow White. Most of us don’t have a very pleasant tune to sing on the way to work. We are like Qohelet. In the end, work is toil and the best we can hope for is to find some momentary enjoyment in the effort. Perhaps that’s why Qohelet used the term ʿāmal, rather than ‘avad (ʿābad). He’s looking at the dark side of the force.
The verb ʿāmal is one of several Hebrew verbs for “labor, work, toil.” Other major terms include ʿābad “to work, serve,” and ʿāśâ “to make, do, work” (both of which see). ʿāmal is used less often than those two verbs, and is employed often with the nuance of the drudgery of toil rather than the nobility of labor. Hebrew ʿāmal is cognate to Arabic ʿamila “to labor,” and to the Akkadian noun nīmēlu, that produced by work, “gain, possessions.”
The root ʿāmal relates to the dark side of labor, the grievous and unfulfilling aspect of work. A biblical view of labor based on this word alone would be defective, but this aspect of work should be included in a full induction. Thus Moses uses this term to describe the frustration and struggle of the worker in this ephemeral, transitory world (Ps 90:10). No wonder he cries out to the eternal God “and let thy beauty (eternal, lovely work) be upon us” (v. 17). [1]
In our modern Western culture, we often think that “work hard – play hard” is recompense for the drudgery. But most of the time, it isn’t. Those long vacations just mean we’ll end up working more hours to pay for them. The thrill of the beach or the power snow or the restaurants and bars often leaves us wondering why we can’t have the life of Riley all the time. We end up more frustrated than we were the day before we left for all the fun. In our world we often live between desperation and dream, having a taste of both but never really getting the meal.
The biblical idea of work is not the same as the somber stagnation. ‘avad includes the idea of service. It is to do outwardly, to be a part of something bigger than self, to know that effort has positive affect beyond ego. William Blake defined work like this: “to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at exactly the same time.” Notice that this is an emotional analysis of personal effort. It isn’t about toiling in order to do something else. It’s about feeling the passion of what I am doing when I am doing it. One might even go so far as to say that work is what it means to love one’s neighbor. On your way to the job today, ask yourself if Blake’s insight fits. If it doesn’t, ask yourself why.
Topical Index: ʿāmal, ‘avad (ʿābad), toil, work, William Blake, Ecclesiastes 2:24
[1] Allen, R. B. (1999). 1639 עָמָל. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 675). Chicago: Moody Press.
After leaving school I had no idea what I wanted to do except work for myself which I did in many small business companies. I enjoyed every day and “retired” happily until the last opportunity came along with a difference. My wife and I worked together in a retail environment and we shared the same result together for the first time and loved it. Although the “holiday” time was severely restricted, it created a perfect environment from which we could both retire fully satisfied.
We have never been so blessed and fulfilled, other than by having three intact families and five grandchildren to show for it and a trail of enjoyable service with church and community projects that continues today. Blake got it right.
Qohelet succumbed to empire building (not to mention a whole lot of really ugly idols).
Drudgery, like all pain, is there to alert us to something that is wrong. Perhaps we would do better to teach our children to listen to pain instead of endure it. God did not invent pain as a way of ‘building character’ (um, that would be listening to Him, instead). I endured pain with the best of them, and only ended up really sick and tired. Life is about purpose, not crossing a finish line (the world’s substitute for that purpose).
We are instructed to pray for deliverance from evil. There is no greater evil than purposelessness. Not having purpose, according to Victor Frankl, was the single biggest predictor of death in the concentration camps. The world’s systems can never supply purpose, either, whether they are our education, social, political or even religious systems. If we are merely attempting to fit into any (or all) of those, drudgery will be the best we can hope for, and the gold watches and bumper stickers on the RV that declare we are “spending our grandchildren’s inheritance” (real bumper stickers I have seen) are all we get.
Purpose is NOT about the future. That would be the world’s attempt at control. Purpose is about the present, but I have noticed there is a twist to Qohelet’s verse. I bet it is a take off on the popular saying of the day (“eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”) from somewhere back in there that you find Isaiah, Luke and Paul alluding to, also, but Qohelet adds that we should check to see if we are enjoying our toil. How do you do that? Well, enter purpose.
The world trains us to enjoy the anticipation of reward, and delayed gratification IS an important skill set, BUT, like all the other forms we try to fit love (function) into, we can’t. Delayed gratification can’t produce righteousness – in and of itself, anyway – any more than any other form can. Purpose is about the present, not necessarily the future, because it is the present that determines that future. Enter Yeshua’s reminder that tomorrow will take care of itself if we do now right. I have found that it is purpose that supplies the proper energy (there’s the correct enjoyment juice) for the present. So many times now I have learned to STOP what I am doing if I find that I have lost the sense of purpose. If I am having to run on adrenaline, especially (using fear as motivation), but the excitement of competition (keeping up with or bettering the Jones’s – covetousness) is even worse. I must stop like Balaam’s donkey and ask to be shown purpose before I go another inch, for I may just need either a correction or even a u-turn in direction. Any other energy source other than purpose is sin. This has been the single biggest revelation I was given to be able to get well.
I think that if we taught our children to examine their lives at all the places they get stuck at to see if they are accomplishing proper purpose, we would be teaching them righteousness.
I learned somewhere in my drudgery years to ask if something was working for me or if I was working for it. That line is subject to change without warning. The day I work for ‘it’ (whatever it is) is the day I have a big ugly idol on my hands. I notice Qohelet built a few of those, too.
We agree Laurita, twice we have packed up everything, sold beautiful homes, successful businesses and moved more than a thousand miles. Proximity to family relationships were a motivation even if we didn’t totally understand it at the time but that is the enduring legacy that we will carry with us forever.
God preserved this world’s beauty after the fall.
I suspect His purpose was to help each of us to be spurned on
by the magnificence of creation to find an equal measure of
magnanimity within us.
It’s there. Creation reflects it. We have to find it.
And what a difference when we do!
Yes,,.Amen! Blake got it right, in 30 years of sole proprietorship I have never lost my heart and love of the art and craft of Architecture. The profession and business environment is another matter altogether. ..