Accepting My Toil
Acceptance • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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“Walden” by Henry David Thoreau
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
I will be satisfied when I have my goals.
I will never be satisfied.
What gain has the worker from his toil?
I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Every season of life has its own beauty.
No season of life is the whole story.
I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.
So the goal of life is pleasure?!
“pleasure in all his toil - this is God’s gift to man”
I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.
Give up the idea that your achievements will change everything. Only God’s will endures forever.
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes?
Wealth will not make you happy.
hevel - “steam, smoke, or wind”
Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.
Work can be its own reward.
As he came from his mother’s womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind? Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger.
Don’t let your happiness depend on things that will certainly make you miserable.
Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.
“find enjoyment in all the toil”
“accept his lot and rejoice in his toil - this is the gift of God”
For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.
Can you imagine a life so filled with joy that you can’t remember what you were worried about?
I will be satisfied when I have my goals.
I will never be satisfied.
I am satisfied with the toil itself.
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”
Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”