The Reason to Rest

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading titled The Reason to Rest was written by Kirsten Holmberg. If you want to live longer, take a vacation. Forty years after a study of middle-aged male executives who each had a risk of heart disease, researchers in Helsinki, Finland, followed up with their study participants. The scientists discovered something they hadn't been looking for in their original findings.

The death rate was lower among those who had taken time off for vacations. Work is a necessary part of life, a part God appointed to us even before our relationship with Him was fractured in Genesis 3. Solomon wrote of the seeming meaninglessness of work experienced by those not working for God's honor, recognizing its anxious striving and grief and pain. Even when they're not actively working, he says their minds do not rest because they're thinking about what still needs to be done. We too might at times feel like we're chasing after the wind and grow frustrated by our inability to finish our work. But when we remember that God is part of our labor, our purpose, we can both work hard and take time to rest. We can trust Him to be our provider, for He's the giver of all things. Solomon acknowledges in Ecclesiastes 22 that without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment? Perhaps by reminding ourselves of that truth, we can work diligently for Him and also allow ourselves times of rest.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verses 17 through 26. So I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.

And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days, their work is grief and pain.

Even at night, their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless. A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too I see is from the hand of God, for without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness. But to the sinner, He gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Let's pray. Father God, hard work done with good motives is a positive thing, but when it's done solely for the purpose of gaining wealth or position, it serves the wrong purpose. The book of Ecclesiastes says it is meaningless. Help us as we often struggle to balance all of the tasks that call for our attention and enable us to take time out for enjoyment and rest. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.