Observation: This section of Ecclesiastes is addressing the meaninglessness of human work. Effectively, the summary is that the work we do is meaningless, and then when we die the results get passed to someone else who may or may not continue it well anyway. Eventually, the work will be obsoleted or ignored, results will fade and disappear, and the names of those who did it will be forgotten. Earthly work is utterly meaningless.
However, the logical analysis then brings God into the picture and finds God provides people with one interesting trait, and that is the ability to find happiness and purpose in one's work. It doesn't mean the work has meaning, but it means it has meaning to that individual, and the way to enjoy one's work in that manner is by aligning it to one's understanding of God. This is further highlighted by the permanence of God's work. What the Lord does lasts forever, so if we can find logic as to how human work aligns to the Lord's work, we can find greater joy in how it may be sustained.
And this is the summary ... the best thing a person can do is enjoy their work. Even if their work is meaningless and they have no idea if it will endure, they can enjoy it because the Lord lets them enjoy it, and they may even be doing something aligned to the Lord that will, in fact, endure.
Application: I am 60 years old ... and I have never once had a job I enjoyed.
I think it's worse than that. I have had jobs where I poured in long hours and hard work, creating successful solutions and generating financial value, and then watched everything I had done be discarded and thrown away in the course of weeks because ... yea, it was totally meaningless.
Even just in the idea of having joy in work ... and I started real work, like "paying-taxes-and-into-social-security" work, when I was 13 ... I have no job in my history that made me happy. I might have felt happy with certain outcomes. I met people who made me laugh ... heck, I met my wife at work! However, the work itself and the job and the results just don't meet the standard of "enjoy" that Solomon uses.
Of course I know why. My work has always been the work by which the Lord blesses my family, but not the work by which I serve the Lord. In that regard, the Lord has absolutely blessed me and my family through my work, and I have greatly enjoyed that. I haven't just enjoyed the blessing, I have enjoyed the relationship with the Lord, understanding and seeing his hand in my work and how it has guided me. I have seen the Lord move in my career in ways that cannot be explained by circumstance or performance, to put me into situations of favor. The results have borne fruit in my family and my life.
As Solomon teaches, this is my joy in work ... finding its alignment to the Lord's plan. It was never the work that was supposed to bring me joy, it was the blessing the Lord could give my family through that work.
Prayer: Abba, my father and my Lord, I have never been worthy of your blessings, yet you love me like a son. I can only say thank you. I do desire to serve you, though in my unworthiness your wisdom has kept me out of direct service where I would certainly stain your good name, and instead allowed me to work in earthly ways that have provided for heavenly purposes, though of course you never needed me to do any of that. I thank you for my life and my work, and for your blessings even here in this joyless work. Amen.
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