Vanity of vanities, says the preacher; vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

Ecclesiastes 1:2&3

Jim pointed out that Solomon qualifies his words with “under the sun.” He’s referring to worldly work and things; without God in our lives, all our work is vain.

Today was a very Monday-ish Monday. I’ve had a headache for days, but it was much worse today. And, I really screwed up something for work. I was feeling ridiculously stupid and lazy, and I was just down. Between my head pounding and the feeling of being the dumbest person in the world, I was not in a good place emotionally. I was sitting in my daughter’s room watching her play, and tried to distract my mind with my phone (looking back, praying probably would have been a better choice…) and saw an Instagram post from Amy Weatherly that about had me in tears:

Good grief, did that hit me hard. I’m sitting here, completely losing my cool over my “job”, and I’m forgetting everything I know. I forgot about my real job, to be found in Christ at all times. There I go again, allowing satan to use other people to get to me; allowing him to distract me is what got me into trouble in the first place. But, there God goes again, too, using other people to speak to me when He knows I’m too distracted to listen directly to Him.

Then, at like 8:30 tonight, I finally sat down to do this devotion (I was craving God’s word at this point, it’s been a day)…and here are these verses from Ecclesiastes. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I keep forgetting to give God EVERYTHING. Current example: my work. I’m not trying my hardest, because I’m not doing it for Him. I’m not doing a good job. My toiling is vanity, because I’m doing my job for money, for experience – not for God’s glory. What a hard reminder I had today.