Is All of Life Toil?

This past Friday I couldn’t help but think to myself: Is all of life toil? Weighed down by a lot of work, household responsibilities, volunteer obligations, my endless to-do list, keeping myself healthy, and the thought of adding caring for children onto this list someday, I couldn’t help but think that life is mostly all toil and suffering.

Is this what my parents brought me into the world for?

That night I was led to a verse in Ecclesiastes 9 and it reminded me of the readings today. Our lot is toilsome labor under the sun, but ‘Go, eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart… enjoy life with your spouse whom you love…God approves of what you do.” 

In other words, enjoy the joys and goodness given to you in the midst of all the toil. Life is a lot of laboring, giving, and serving, but it is also about receiving the small joys, the feasting, and the abundance given to us along the way. These are the things to savor. 

We are called to the wedding feast – the abundant banquet of rich food and choice wines at the end of this life. We’re called to the eternal rest of the Psalm today where God leads us to restful, peaceful pastures and gives us sweet repose. We’re only given glimpses of it in this life with the hope of receiving it for eternity in the next.

So go about your toiling, as is the role of each of us in the vineyard of the Lord. But while you’re doing it, don’t forget to rest in the Lord and enjoy the moments of joy and goodness that God gives you which points to what we’ll experience more fully in heaven someday. 

Let that be your hope and vision on the days you’re struggling to get through another day.