The Sin Nobody Confronts
“There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail.”Ecclesiastes 4:8 (KJV)
Picture two men who both overdo something. One drinks too much, and his friends sit him down for a hard conversation. The other works eighty hours a week, misses his kids’ games and never takes a day off, and he gets invited to speak at a conference.
Some sins get applause. Overwork is one of them. Nobody stages an intervention for the man who is always at the office. They call him driven, and they ask for his secrets.
Solomon saw this man long before conferences existed. “There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good?”
That last question is the one to ask. For whom am I working? If the answer is your family, but your family hardly sees you, something has gone wrong. Jesus asked it more sharply: “what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Read it yourself
Read Ecclesiastes 4:4–8. What two motives for work does Solomon describe, and what does he call them?
If a close friend looked honestly at your work hours, would they be worried? Would you let them say so?
Lord, show me if my work has become something I praise in myself that you would call a sin. Help me work for the right reasons. Amen.