Vanity

In case you were wondering, I strongly recommend never working in the fast-food industry.  My recent employment with McDonald’s has done very little good at all, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to share a brief list of my complaints (to be taken light-heartedly, of course):

1. While working with fast-food, you do the same thing everyday:  Take an order, prepare the order, present the order, fake a smile, clean up the order. Repeat.
2. You serve the same people everyday. (No joke; there is a family that literally eats dinner at McDonald’s every night...I role my eyes the minute I see them walk through the doors).
3. It’s never not busy.
4. Between school and work, I’m left with hardly any time to do things I enjoy doing (McDonald’s has consumed my social life!).

Now before this turns into a rant on my dislike for McDonald’s, there is a principle about work in general that I am moving towards.  The book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament captures the idea perfectly.  It says “when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”  

The book of Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books.  It is alarmingly truthful and insightful, and if any of you have ever read it, you know what I’m talking about.  If I had to summarize the book of Ecclesiastes in one word, it would be “vanity”.  Dictionary.com defines the word “vanity” as “a lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness”.  Solomon uses this word in his description of human work, asserting that “all work done under the sun is vanity”.  That means that school is vanity.  Sports are vanity.  Our careers are vanity.  We will all depart from this life someday, and only the memory of our work will be left behind. 

I am afraid that some of us might misunderstand Solomon, so I must point out that laboring for the Kingdom of Heaven is not vain at all.  Just because the things of this earth are fleeting, doesn’t mean they are good-for-nothing.  God has created this world and everything in it; this world is good.  Our work becomes vain when we take what God intended for good, and use it for our own agendas.    

When we boil life down to what truly matters, two things remain: God and His creation.  God sent Jesus to die so that we may have eternal life through Him.  I believe that our work (when applied rightly) can be an investment into this eternity. We can lead others to Jesus, we can worship God and delight in Him, we can live using our gifts as an eternal investment.  When our lives are focused on God (through worship and devotion) and His creation (by love and ministry) our work becomes life-giving.  And that, my friends, is a job worth doing.

Andrew 

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:  Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.  For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.”