A deep dive into Ecclesiastes and what it means for your work
How to ensure you don’t end your life describing your work as “meaningless” like Solomon does in the book of Ecclesiastes, the biblical case for enjoying more of the fruits of your labor, and one thing you can do to renew your awe of God and his Word.
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0:00:05.4] JR: Hey friend, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast, I’m Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians, those of us who aren’t pastors or religious professionals but who work as jewelers, cable installers, and pharmacists? That’s the question we explore every week and today, I’m posing it to my friend, Michelle Myers. She’s a cofounder of She Works His Way, a graduate of Southwestern Seminary, and the author of a terrific, new, accessible commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes, and that’s what we dove deep on in this episode.
We read Solomon’s words, this Jewish Eeyore of sorts, about the meaninglessness of life, the meaninglessness of work, and we talked about how to ensure that you don’t end your life, describing your work as meaningless like Solomon did in Ecclesiastes. We talked about the Biblical case for enjoying more of the fruits of your labor, and we talked about the one practical thing you could do today to renew your awe of God and God’s good word. You guys are going to love this deep dive Michelle and I do into the book of Ecclesiastes, enjoy the episodes.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:29.3] JR: Michelle Myers, welcome back.
[0:01:30.9] MM: Yes.
[0:01:31.7] JR: One of our rare return guests here on the Mere Christians Podcast. How are you, friend?
[0:01:35.4] MM: I’m so good, thank you so much for having me back.
[0:01:38.1] JR: This is why, right? Because we did like seven minutes of pre-conversation, we probably going to go on for another 70.
[0:01:45.5] MM: I know, we could have. It’s just –
[0:01:46.1] JR: Just my people.
[0:01:47.8] MM: It’s so much fun, every time I get to talk to you.
[0:01:49.5] JR: I know. We won’t give everyone the back story of the Michelle/Jordan friendship. If you want, you can go listen to episode 51, everybody, but hey, for those listeners who haven’t been listening since episode 51, which is mindboggling, I think we got to properly introduce you and your work.
[0:02:05.1] MM: Yeah.
[0:02:05.6] JR: So, for those who don’t know, tell us about She Works His Way. What is this?
[0:02:10.3] MM: Yeah, so, She Works His Way is an accidental ministry that was birthed out of the meeting of four friends. Honestly, there were four of us, this was a decade plus ago, and we just were working women but we loved Jesus fiercely, and we just started to feel the tension between the work world and our love for the Lord.
It just felt like a tension, and we were just aware of it, and so we drew each other in and it was like, “Let’s – instead of leaving this conversation between our ears, let’s actually talk about this out loud, let’s talk about this tension.” And we have found in every conversation since that when you actually talk about the tension, it makes the tension fade away.
[0:02:51.7] JR: Yeah.
[0:02:52.2] MM: Because I think that satan works in isolation, he loves that avenue. And so, when we come together, and we speak God’s truth over one another and we remind each other of what Jesus has said, because we are firm believers that that’s what we are, we’re reminders. We need to be good reminders of one another of, because, everything we really need to know, Jesus has already said. There’s the essentials.
We meet together and now, it’s more than four women, every woman is welcome to come and to join this conversation with us about what it looks like to do what matters in a world that seems to only value getting things done.
[0:03:26.7] JR: Yeah. I love it, and I’m – I’ve been a Michelle Myers and a She Works His Way super fan since the day I met you. So, you guys, part of your portfolio work now, includes these commentaries, I was super excited when you texted me this.
[0:03:39.0] MM: Yes.
[0:03:38.4] JR: I was like, yes, Michelle’s running a commentary.
[0:03:40.7] MM: Yes.
[0:03:41.9] JR: Not a stodgy academic commentary but an accessible, what you call, conversational commentary and you chose Ecclesiastes. I have to ask why you started with what some perceive, hand raised, to be one of the hardest books to understand. Why did you start here?
[0:04:00.4] MM: It’s funny, actually. So, fun fact, I wrote the Acts commentary first.
[0:04:03.4] JR: Oh, interesting.
[0:04:04.1] MM: Whenever I get any kind of unsettled in my faith, I always – or even just bored, I go to the Book of Acts because I can always count on it to fire me up and to get me excited and to remind me of the real mission at hand. But after I wrote Acts and that one was in production, I started writing Ecclesiastes. I was drawn to it and I started writing it and it had to take priority because it was like, “No-no-no-no-no. The time for this one is now, I am going to be disobedient if we don’t get this one out there.” Because, Ecclesiastes, is it fair to say, it’s pretty misunderstood?
[0:04:42.1] JR: I think so.
[0:04:43.6] MM: Okay. I feel like I read it with such a different tone. It kind of has the reputation of being the bummer book of the Bible. Solomon is just – here’s this pessimistic old man and trying to –
[0:04:54.4] JR: Yeah, Jewish Eeyore, I like to call Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes, yeah.
[0:04:58.6] MM: But I read it with a different tone this last time, and instead of reading it, the Jewish Eeyore, that’s a phenomenal description, by the way, that’s so good. But instead of reading it like this, I read it from a man who was looking back on his life with regret and pleading, with me not to fall victim to the same things that he felt victim to. And I just feel like, in our world, we live in a world that idolizes success and idolizes all of these measurable metrics that tell us whether we’ve made it or not.
And the world is constantly putting filter after filter on it to make these lies that it comes up with, look so appealing to us. And I feel like all Solomon does in the entire book is just takes one filter and rips it off, and then he finds another filter, he rips that one off too, and instead of seeing it as pessimistic, like it felt so refreshing to me to hear someone have a realistic view of the world. And instead of putting filters on it to make it look better, it was actually calling the world out on its stuff, and calling it for what it is. And it felt so refreshing to finally hear those things said, instead of covered up.
[0:06:11.5] JR: I love it. All right, well, let’s do it, let’s roll up our sleeves.
[0:06:14.5] MM: Okay.
[0:06:15.1] JR: Let’s get to work understanding this book and applying it to the work of our listeners. Listener, this is going to feel more like a Bible study than a typical episode. So, if you got your Bibles, pull them out, sword drills, find Ecclesiastes, and the book starts with this like very somber note, right? Chapter one verses two to three, it says this, “Meaningless, meaningless says the teacher, utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless, what do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?”
Okay, all right. So, here, Jewish Eeyore is setting up this theme, we see, you might have to update your book cover of this counter.
[0:06:50.4] MM: That’s so great.
[0:06:51.7] JR: Stayed at his theme, right? We see throughout the whole book, work can feel meaningless and yet, Michelle, you and I are constantly telling believers how meaningful their work is. How do you reconcile these two things?
[0:07:04.6] MM: It is seeing our contribution versus what God has done, and so Jesus is that difference maker. It’s understanding, “Okay, my own talent is not going to make a significant splash but when the gospel is my motivation, and God is the one getting the glory, instead of merely us doing work, that’s us joining God in His work in the world.” And so even if task-for-task it looks similar, the impact is so different because the end goal and the motivation and the final results, all of those things are in God’s hands, instead of being in mine.
[0:07:47.0] JR: Okay. So, it sounds like you’re kind of expanding upon the truth of 1 Corinthians 15:58 where Paul says that any labor we do in the Lord is not in vain. Other commentaries I have read and said that that means, “In the Lord” is essentially meaning power by the Holy Spirit.
[0:08:03.3] MM: Right.
[0:08:03.7] JR: Work done for God’s glory and not our own. So, even though the task may look meaningless in the temporal, for example, I don’t know, I spent 10 years building spreadsheets at an account at Enron, and then overnight, the business is gone, right? That looks meaningless. If I was doing those things for the Lord, if I was doing that for God’s glory, somehow miraculously, that thing is not in vain, is that what you’re saying, Michelle?
[0:08:28.8] MM: Yeah, it’s understanding, God doesn’t waste anything. And so even if it doesn’t produce the results that we can measure by our worldly standards, if we trust, “Hey, I submitted this to the Lord, He called me here, I submitted this work to Him. I can trust that He’s going to use it and that there was a reason for it, even if I don’t get to see it.” And so, it’s just trusting the big picture of God in his sovereignty, instead of trying to find that satisfaction and fulfillment in myself and what I can do.
[0:08:58.7] JR: That’s so good. God doesn’t waste anything and even though we might not be able to see how he’s using that thing on this side of eternity, we can trust that His promises are good and that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.
[0:09:14.5] MM: Yes.
[0:09:15.2] JR: Okay, all right. So, we flip over the chapter two of Ecclesiastes. So, Solomon in chapter one is like, “Everything is meaningless, work is meaningless, life is meaningless.” But then, in chapter two verse 24, he says, “A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their toil, this too I see is from the hand of God.”
So, work is meaningless if it’s not being up for God’s glory, but there’s nothing better than to enjoy our work. Is he bipolar? Break this down for us. Where do you think he lands on the meaning of work?
[0:09:50.8] MM: It’s interesting, I think he’s kind of hinting around to something that we talk about often in the faith and work world that overwork is probably the most rewarded addiction. You know, usually with addictions, we encourage people to seek treatment, to remedy their overreliance on a substance. But with overwork, that addiction is typically praised, promoted, envied by others.
I mean, the list goes on. And so in the context here, what’s happening is Solomon is saying, “Hey, listen. Don’t worship your work, worship God, and when you worship God, you’ll actually be able to enjoy your work.” Because, this is actually what the entire book is about, about how only God can satisfy. Ecclesiastes is honestly an exploration of the experiment that Solomon went on in his life of all the different things that he tried to satisfy him, other than God.
And so, she is warning us here, “Hey, listen, when you attempt to find satisfaction and things that are only going to let you down” such as your work. Again, your work is awesome, except for, if it’s the driving force of your purpose and your satisfaction. It’s hard to view something as a blessing to enjoy when you ultimately are like, “This is the source of my dissatisfaction” whether that’s consciously or unconsciously.
And so, if I’m saying, if I were more successful in my work, I’d be more satisfied, that is literally making my work the source of my dissatisfaction because I think that I haven’t arrived yet, and so he’s saying, “Hey, listen, your work is a gift that God has given you, and if you will worship Him, then you can also enjoy your work. But if you worship your work, you will not see your work as God’s gift to you and you will leave that joy on the table that He has for you.”
And so, he is telling you, “Hey listen, find satisfaction in the Lord and enjoy the work that He has given you to do.” I see that as being from God’s hand, as wanting to be the object of our worship and also wanting to give us a life that we enjoy.
[0:11:49.1] JR: Yeah, and I think it’s – I think this is what Keller was getting at with this phrase of his that I love. He called it the work beneath our work, right? He says, hold on, I’m pulling this up right now. I think it’s in Every Good Endeavor, I can’t remember what book this is from. He says, “Christians have been set free to enjoy working. If we begin to work as if we were serving the Lord, we would be freed from both overwork and underwork. Neither the prospect of money and to claim, nor the lack of it will be our controlling consideration, work will be primarily a way to please God,”
And what he’s saying is, “Hey, listen, if you’re using work to gain your sense of worth, to gain your sense of identity – you’re not enslaved to the work. You can’t find the satisfaction you’re looking for because while work is a good God-given thing, nothing but Christ is a good and ultimate thing.”
[0:12:46.8] MM: Right.
[0:12:47.2] JR: But once you clear that hurdle, now I can enjoy the work just for what it is as God’s good gift, right?
[0:12:53.0] MM: Yes. Yeah, and so I feel like we definitely get stuck here in that work beneath your work, and it matters that we take the time to not just allow ourselves to believe that the frustration has to do with the work itself, but that we actually do the deeper work to figure out, “Okay, what is this that I’m really wrestling with?” And I think, probably nine times out of 10, curious to see if you agree that it’s an identity issue.
[0:13:20.7] JR: Yeah.
[0:13:21.2] MM: And so, we need to come to our work with the understanding that who I am is what Jesus has done. It’s not what I do.
[0:13:29.8] JR: Yes.
[0:13:30.7] MM: But that is so easy to get twisted when we put too much of our identity in our work.
[0:13:36.7] JR: Yes.
[0:13:38.2] MM: I’m curious to know what your thoughts are on the identity piece.
[0:13:41.6] JR: Yeah, I think this is the root, when there is overwork when there is burnout. I think there are other factors in play but I think identity is a big one but I wrote about this in Redeeming Your Time. I think when you get this right, and when your identity is firmly rooted in Christ, the gospel leads you to a deep place of rest, right? In the work and outside the work, right? I think it leads to more restful work.
But ironically, I think it also leads to more ambition for the work because now, I don’t need to get anything from the work. I don’t need to work hard in order for God to love me because I’m perfectly secure. I understand that I was loved when I was God’s enemy and so I can understand that God loves me on my most and my least productive day, but it’s that truth that leads me to want to be productive, right?
[0:14:30.6] MM: Right.
[0:14:30.9] JR: Not because I need to but because I want to as a worshipful response to the love that is perfectly secure in Christ alone. Does that make sense?
[0:14:39.6] MM: Yeah, yes, and I think that kind of plays into surrender and trust. Some of understanding that when the work beneath our work becomes really heavy, sometimes I think we believe the lie somehow that like, “Oh, this is all up to me” and if I ever believe that lie, then I’ve made myself far more important than I actually am because it is not all up to me. God, He graciously allows us to join in his work in the world but we do not have the same job.
God has a different job than we do. My job is following Him in obedience where He leads me, and His job is everything else. And I – I feel like I say this on every podcast interview that I have, I always confess, I’m really bad at doing God’s job. Every time that I have attempted, I’m like, “Oh, I’m really bad at this.”
[0:15:24.0] JR: Who knew?
[0:15:23.7] MM: Who knew?
[0:15:25.6] JR: Who knew? But yeah, it’s that freedom though recognizing that He’s responsible for the results and I’ve just got to be faithful.
[0:15:32.7] MM: Yes.
[0:15:33.8] JR: That allows us to enjoy the work more, right?
[0:15:35.5] MM: Yes.
[0:15:37.3] JR: Because I can remember, I can rest, I cannot finish my to-do list, and if the things on my to-do list or on God’s to-do list, He’s going to take care of them, so I can enjoy the work and not overwork and not burn out because I know He’s got it, right?
[0:15:51.0] MM: That boils back to contentment too. One of my favorite phrases of the apostle Paul was in Philippians 4:11, where he talks about how, “I’m not saying this because I’m in need for I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances.” I feel like that, I have learned to be content are some of the most comforting verses in all of scripture for the person that knows that you have a bend toward ambition.
Contentment is something that you have to learn, it’s something that you have to practice. It is not natural, it’s learned, and if we look at that passage that Paul was writing, he is like, “Hey, listen, the secret to be content is this, the world’s way is going to focus on what you don’t have that you want to get but you can’t keep.” That’s the world’s way, which is how they keep you in that hamster wheel.
And then Christ’s way is, “Hey, listen, you focus on what you need that you have and you can't lose, which is Jesus, and if you will switch that thinking in your brain, it becomes so much easier to practice contentment.”
[0:16:56.5] JR: Yeah. Speaking of contentment, how do you reconcile that with Solomon’s plea throughout Ecclesiastes, to enjoy the fruits of our labor? So, we’ve already seen – Solomon says, “Hey, God wants us to enjoy our work. If you love your job, don’t feel guilty about that, lean into that, that’s a gift from God, do it.” But then, he also says, Ecclesiastes 9:7, here it is.
He says, “Go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart. For God has already approved what you do.” So, is this – is this related to contentment? He’s telling us to enjoy the things we’ve got but not necessarily strive for more. What’s he saying here?
[0:17:36.3] MM: Solomon makes a lot of analogies to meals. The more that I studied, the more I kept telling my husband, James like, “This is your book of the bible” Solomon is all about a good meal, Solomon was a foodie, and so this is not about a meal but I do think that the way that we eat, we can learn a lot about the pace that we are running by how we do eat. So, like, just thinking about it because he did say, he said, “Go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart.” And so, which words do you identify with most?
If I say things like, eating at your desk, fast food, microwave, or, if I say seated meal with others, well-prepared and actually enjoyed. I think what Solomon is reminding us here is that we were meant to live our lives in such a way that we take the time to enjoy it because joy is a fruit of the Spirit. And when we think – I don’t think that joyful is a word that people think of when they think about Christians.
Unfortunately, I wish that it was, but I don’t think that we do a really good job of radiating that joy. And so much of it, I think that the culprit is not necessarily what we do but the pace at which we run and not taking the pace of enjoyment and not making that a priority, taking the time to celebrate.
[0:19:11.8] JR: All right. So, you’re an ambitious mere Christian like me, like a lot of our listeners, you’re working hard, you’re working heartily as unto the Lord, you’re expending the energy that Paul talked about. What are you changing as a result of wiring this commentary in Ecclesiastes that would enable you to enjoy the gifts God’s bringing through your work more? Are you making any significant changes here?
[0:19:35.9] MM: This changed so much for me. So much because I think that I realize, I am – I’m putting so much on myself that there’s not time to stop and celebrate and enjoy and if you think about it, we’re not talking about mindless celebration. We’re talking about worship.
[0:19:57.2] JR: Yes.
[0:19:58.6] MM: This is about recognizing all of the gifts that God has given me and if I am just running myself ragged to the point to where I am no longer grateful to God for all of the gifts that He has given me, then I’m living my life like a hard-working entitled brat. That’s the best way that I can put it. I have asked myself to slow down and to celebrate and to enjoy and to worship and to see the beauty in the things that God is creating. And instead of putting this pressure on myself that I have to do something, it is truly making sure that I am taking the time to worship God for what I see Him doing.
[0:20:44.0] JR: So, what are you doing practically there? Is it Sabbath, is it reviewing your calendar every day just to be mindful of and thankful of the good fruit that your work is producing, what does this look like practically?
[0:20:56.6] MM: So, Sabbath is a huge one but I also argue that once you have a Sabbath, you will start craving a little bit of Sabbath in your every day.
[0:21:08.3] JR: That’s good, yes.
[0:21:09.6] MM: And so, it’s not just about that one day because when we really think about what is the purpose of the Sabbath? The purpose of the Sabbath is our regular reminder of what heaven is going to be like.
[0:21:24.5] JR: Yes.
[0:21:26.1] MM: And if you want to live with an eternal perspective, the best way that you can do that is by putting some Sabbath in every day, and so I definitely think that I look at my calendar differently, and I want to leave margin in it not because I’m going to be lazy in the margin but because if I have margin, then I leave room for God to interrupt me.
And if you couple reading Ecclesiastes and taking Solomon’s words to heart with a read through the Gospels, you’ll see that the majority of the miracles that Jesus performed, the majority of the conversations, the conversions that we see, Jesus was being interrupted when that happened. He was usually on his way to go somewhere else.
And so, we need to live our life on purpose but we also need to leave margin for God to interrupt us so that He will. Like, if you’re thinking about your life and you’re going, “Man, God has – I don’t know that God’s interrupted me, He might have tried.”
But if you were so busy that you never had time to look up or you never even had time to invest in the souls that were around you, because the task was the priority, there’s something to be said for leaving that margin, not for a slothful purpose, so that we can just have time to relax but time for God to lead and direct us, I think is so important.
[0:22:58.5] JR: Yeah, and I also think, a more sane, Jesus-like pace to our work is necessary for being reminded of and enjoying the good fruits of our labor, right? So, I just got done re-reading one of my all-time favorite books, a great biography in the life of Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers. This guy was phenomenally productive, crazy productive in his life but he had a good two to three hours of quiet solitude spread out across three times during his day, every single day.
And I think it was in those moments of silence, the biographer didn’t say this, I’m extrapolating here but I got to imagine that it’s in those items of silence that he’s able to think about and dwell on and be grateful for the good fruit that God was producing in his work that led him to be more ambitious for the work, and to do better work when he came out of one of those times of silence, right?
Those things are inextricably linked. So, whether it’s silence or taking time to just eat a good meal in the middle of our day or Sabbath, or whatever, I think this is really critical for us, to work at a pace that allows us to worship as we work, which includes thankfulness and gratefulness for the things that God has already done in the work.
[0:24:23.0] MM: Yes.
[0:24:24.4] JR: Amen?
[0:24:24.2] MM: Yes, and that reminds me, have you read, Life Together by Bonhoeffer?
[0:24:28.1] JR: I have not. I know of it but yeah.
[0:24:30.4] MM: Okay. So, he makes a phenomenal connection on this of basically talking about how solitude is a really important part of community because we shouldn’t come to community to receive what we can only get from God in solitude. And so our solitude prepares us to go into community but also what God gives us in that alone time isn’t merely meant for us.
It is meant for us to share with the other believers that are around us and so we often time compartmentalize the two or we think that we’re strong in one area, we’re weak in the other, whereas they were really designed to be interdependent on one another.
[0:25:08.8] JR: Yeah, that’s really good. All right, so Solomon concludes work is good, enjoying the fruit of our labors is good, right? But he also argues, especially in Ecclesiastes seven that suffering is good. The thorns and thistles that make our work difficult are good. In verse 14 he says, “When times are good, be happy but when times are bad, consider this, God has made the one as well as the other.”
And I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about this lately, I just did a devotional series on this. I’m excited to hear your perspective like why can Christians paradoxically thank God for the “bad times” in our work?
[0:25:51.0] MM: I think that our bad times, the times of suffering, they do truly keep us dependent on God, which is so important because you go back to that John 15:5 of apart from me, you can do nothing and remembering that our dependence, our desire, and commitment to abiding in Christ is the most critical thing that is going to produce any fruit from our life. It doesn’t matter how talented we are.
And so I think that those bad times really do keep us clinging to Him in deep dependence and remind us of our limits and push us into Him, because we know that He doesn’t have any. From a practical perspective when it comes to our work, I really do think that the suffering that we encounter in our work, I think that it’s part of how God protects us from idolizing our work.
[0:26:50.2] JR: Yes.
[0:26:50.9] MM: Or from loving what we do more than we actually love God himself.
[0:26:50.9] JR: Yes.
[0:26:55.7] MM: And so, we have to see those pieces of suffering as additional ways that God draws us to Him.
[0:27:03.7] JR: Yes, I think that’s exactly it.
[0:27:05.4] MM: Because we’re idol factories.
[0:27:06.9] JR: Yes, a hundred percent, right? And so, it’s a double edge sword like on the one hand, yes, we lament over the thorns and thistles of our work and we look forward expectantly to the day where thorns and thistles are gone, and we will all long to enjoy the work of our hands for eternity. That said, we can also thank God for these thorns and thistles, right?
[0:27:25.4] MM: Yes, yes.
[0:27:26.6] JR: Because they ensure that we will never find total satisfaction apart from Him.
[0:27:31.9] MM: Yes, yes. Spoiler alert, that’s Solomon’s plea. He gets to the end and he is like, “Hey listen, fear God, keep His commands, and that’s it.” Like that’s the suffering. He takes an entire 12 chapters to get there, but we have to take his word for it. And I think that that’s the thing that I found the most urgent. It felt urgent when I was reading Ecclesiastes because none of us are ever going to be a resource like Solomon.
He was the wisest man to ever live, he was the most powerful man to ever live, he was the wealthiest man to ever live. Like you can try – I think he actually talks about that, it’s pretty funny in layman’s terms. He’s like, “Hey listen, if you want to try to be better than me, be my guest.”
[0:28:12.7] JR: Come at me, bro, yeah.
[0:28:13.7] MM: “Shoot your shot, you are not going to hit it. You’re not going to get it.” And so I think that that’s why we have to take his word for it so seriously is because even if we get 90% of what we are aiming for, we could believe that our lack of fulfillment is because of that 10% that didn’t happen and Solomon is like, “Nope, nope, nope, got it. Everything I wanted got it, check, and I got to the end of it and I realized all I ever needed wasn’t something that I was accomplishing, it was something that I already had in God.”
[0:28:13.7] JR: Yeah, that’s so good. All right, a couple more sections from the book I want to touch on.
[0:28:51.6] MM: Yeah.
[0:28:51.6] JR: One is this idea of vocational dreams that we see in Ecclesiastes five, you’re a dreamer, I am a dreamer. I love your perspective in the commentary on how this over-obsession and over-focus on a dream can actually be detrimental to us. Can you share a bit of your perspective on this?
[0:29:13.0] MM: Yeah, God always equips us for what He calls us to do, right? He promises that He’s going to do that, that He is going to give us everything we need to live a godly life. But the training ground that He chooses for us, I don’t think that it – I think it rarely looks like what we think will add up to the dream, and we can go to so many biblical examples for this. Take Joseph, do you think that prison sounded like this is training grounds for me to be second in command of the palace someday?
Prison seems like a really good place for me to go for that training ground. Probably not. Think about David, I’m curious, I would want to know someday like, “Hey, listen, how long did it take you to realize just how much shepherding prepared you to be king? How long did that take?” If we set our mind on the dream, we will dwell on the dream, we’ll talk about the dream, we’ll wish for the dream more than we will actually work for the dream.
[0:30:10.3] JR: Yes.
[0:30:11.2] MM: But if we set our mind on Christ, if we’re like, “Hey, listen, God, I am going to serve you and I am going to be faithful where you have me” then I can trust Him that He is not limited in what he can do in and through me based on how He chooses to prepare me. If you dwell on the dream and you have these five steps with a five-year plan, then you’re probably going to end up being a big talker and possibly not a big doer, and you might actually run away from some of the training ground that God has to prepare you for what he’s calling you to do.
[0:30:11.2] JR: Yeah, and Solomon goes on in five-seven, I think it is, yeah. Here it is, it says, “Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore, fear God.” What do you think he’s saying there? Because I think this is relevant to what you just said.
[0:31:01.1] MM: Yeah, I mean, big dreamers are usually big talkers and Solomon is like, “You know hey, if the dream was put on your heart by God, obey.”
[0:31:09.8] JR: Do the work.
[0:31:10.8] MM: Yeah. Listen, I think it’s important that we say this here, this is not about your performance. You already talked about this, we don’t obey God so He’ll love us. We obey God because He loves us. That is the driving motivation behind it, and so you do not have to micromanage God. He is capable to put you exactly where He needs you to give you this unique set of circumstances and experiences and gifts and people to add up to a finished product that He is fully confident in. And so, obey, just obey. Those small steps of obedience, they matter so much.
[0:31:49.8] JR: Yeah, you wrote this. I love that so much. “It’s very easy to delay obeying God by dreaming about and talking about what God is calling you to do instead of doing what God has called you to do” which is to be faithful with what’s in your hand.
[0:32:09.4] MM: That’s right. That’s right.
[0:32:11.0] JR: Right now, that’s it.
[0:32:12.4] MM: Yes, yes. That probably like – I think if I could rent a billboard, that might be what I would put on it.
[0:32:19.4] JR: Please don’t. Please don’t be one of those Christians that rents billboards.
[0:32:25.1] MM: I won’t.
[0:32:25.3] JR: Oh, we got too many of these in the State of Georgia, I hate driving into Georgia. My word, Georgia settle down, settle down, okay?
[0:32:32.5] MM: That’s so funny.
[0:32:33.2] JR: Find a more productive use of your funds than terrible end-of-times propaganda.
[0:32:38.0] MM: It’s true.
[0:32:38.7] JR: Hey, all right, so since we’re hanging out with Jewish Eeyore, let’s end on the most Eeyore-ish note possible. Can we talk about death?
[0:32:47.1] MM: Let’s go, okay.
[0:32:48.2] JR: Let’s go, let’s go. All right, Ecclesiastes 7:2, Solomon says, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone. The living should take this to heart.” And I’ve been thinking a lot about this, probably maybe to a not healthy degree over the last couple of years. I try to be really intentional about thinking about death. I’m curious if you do and if so, what that looks like.
[0:33:19.9] MM: I don’t know if it’s as much that I intentionally think about death, but I do remember consistently that I am not promised tomorrow and so I guess indirectly, I do think about death because they’re kind of tied together but –
[0:33:35.7] JR: No, I like your way, way better than mine. So, how do you remember you’re not promised tomorrow? What does that look like?
[0:33:41.5] MM: Oh man, one of my absolute favorite Elisabeth Elliot quotes, she said, “Today is mine and tomorrow is not of my business.” She’s like the no-nonsense grandma sometimes that I need in my life to make sense of things. And for forward thinkers, okay, let’s talk for a second because we got a lot of visionaries on here that may seem impossible for you to think through, to where you’re like, “Hang on a second, if tomorrow is none of my business, then isn’t that irresponsible?”
No, it’s not irresponsible of you to not dwell on tomorrow because it’s the same thing of talking, we talked earlier about how we joined God and His work in the world but we don’t have the same job. It’s the reality that tomorrow is God’s job. You don’t have to worry about tomorrow because God’s got tomorrow. He’s already there, He stands outside of time, and so today is yours. So, it doesn’t mean you can’t think about tomorrow but don’t live in tomorrow.
Live in today and then tomorrow, if it comes, will become today and you’ll get to own it tomorrow, but don’t move past where God has you right now because you could very well miss what He’s got for you in this moment just simply because you are already living in tomorrow.
[0:34:54.3] JR: Okay, but reconcile this, right? Because Proverbs 21 tells us the plains of the diligent lead surely to abundance, right? The scripture extols the virtues of planning and planning ahead but it also says be in the moment, worry about today. Jesus told us don’t worry about tomorrow. How do you reconcile these things?
[0:35:12.1] MM: So, I think it is I can make plans, I just can’t depend on them.
[0:35:16.5] JR: That’s good.
[0:35:17.7] MM: I depend on the Lord, I don’t depend on my plan and I am not following my plan, I’m following the Lord, and if the Lord changes the plan, I’ll change the plan.
[0:35:26.3] JR: That’s good.
[0:35:27.2] MM: And so just very much taking the plan but holding it with open hands, no white knuckles.
[0:35:33.2] JR: I can make plans, I just can’t depend on them.
[0:35:35.8] MM: Correct.
[0:35:36.3] JR: Frame it, that’s what’s going on your billboard in Georgia. No, so I think James gets at this really well. I think it’s at James chapter four when he’s talking about, “Hey, don’t say tomorrow we’re going to do this such and such city, the Lord willing we will. Lord willing, we will.” I’ve inserted that into my speech so much that I think it’s like annoying people now. Like I say, “Lord willing” like every other sentence because I am always talking about the future, right? But like it’s a display of humility.
[0:36:08.8] MM: That’s right.
[0:36:09.3] JR: It’s maybe like, “I don’t know if I’m going to see you tomorrow. Lord willing, I’ll see you tomorrow at 8:00 AM” right? But I don’t know, I make the plans I just don’t depend on them, right?
[0:36:18.0] MM: Correct, yes.
[0:36:19.1] JR: I love it. Hey, somewhere in this commentary you asked the reader. I love this question, it was so clarifying to me. You’re like, “Hey, what do you remember about your great-grandparents?”
[0:36:29.9] MM: Oh yeah.
[0:36:30.5] JR: I was like, “Ooh, dang” that’s instantly sobering. Nothing, of course, all of us die. Almost everything we do at work is going to be forgotten. How should that truth shape the work that our listeners are doing on this day that they’re listening to this podcast?
[0:36:47.4] MM: Man, so what you do will be forgotten but what God does lasts and so, we just shouldn’t live in such a way that desires to build our own legacy but desires to be a part of what God is doing. Go back and think about – I was just telling a story the other day to my oldest son about one of my middle school teachers. I do not remember a single thing, I don’t think. I couldn’t attribute a single thing that I actually remember about US history to this teacher.
But I remember so many things that she taught me through example, through her words that were related to her character, and so in a sense even if I don’t necessarily remember the work that was done in the classroom, I remember how God used her in my life and I think that because we do get so hung up sometimes on those wrong measurements, those are the things that may feel good in the moment.
They may be measured for the moment but it’s not even that they’re not remembered two generations from now. Most of the time, they’re not even remembering next month. You could test this out. I bet you if you went and did a street survey and just ask people, “Hey, who won the Superbowl?” A lot of people would be like, “Uh” they forget. We don’t remember even though it’s lasting accomplishments.
And so, just live in such a way that trust that if you are following the Lord and that if you’re a part of the work that He is doing in the world, that is the legacy that’s going to last and that’s the legacy that’s going to be remembered.
[0:38:19.8] JR: Yes, and the work matters because He won’t forget.
[0:38:24.3] MM: That’s right.
[0:38:24.8] JR: The world will but Hebrews 6:10 says, “God’s not unjust.” He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them through your work, mere Christian. And so, any work that we do for our fame, for our fortune, and according to our rules is going to perish, but any work that we do for God’s glory, powered by God’s spirit, and according to God’s rules and for His Kingdom will last forever and ever because He will not forget, amen?
[0:38:59.6] MM: That’s right, amen.
[0:39:00.9] JR: Hey, one more thing before we get to our final three questions.
[0:39:03.4] MM: Yeah.
[0:39:03.6] JR: You breezed past this I think at the first question and I had to circle back to it.
[0:39:08.3] MM: Okay.
[0:39:08.9] JR: You said anytime you used the word bored, anytime I’m bored in the Lord, something like that, you come back to Acts. Can I just thank you for being a real person and admitting that there are times when our daily bread tastes stale? I feel that way and I know a lot of Christians feel that way but they’re unwilling to admit that. They feel guilty like, “Oh man, God’s word just be like wildly exciting like every time I come to it.”
It’s not for me and I thought I heard you say it’s not for you. What do you do? So, you come back to Acts, what else do you do when you’re in that season where you’ve got a couple of days, maybe even a couple of weeks where I don’t know, the word just doesn’t feel fresh to you. What do you do to get out of that rut and to maintain your awe of God’s word?
[0:39:57.9] MM: Oh man, I do everything that I can to have a conversation with a young believer, somebody who has not been working with the Lord very long because their excitement and their testimony is so fresh. and when I get to hear their hunger for the Lord and the hunger for righteousness, that thirst, it makes me thirsty. It fires me up. It reminds me of what it was like to be far from the Lord and then all of a sudden to realize that “Oh, I’m found and my life has purpose.”
“And that’s why that all of this felt so different and felt like such a tension point before. It all makes sense now.” I love having conversations with young believers and just even talking to somebody that is wrestling with their faith. and usually in those moments, I will find the Lord bringing to my mind scriptures. I feel the Holy Spirit present and near to me in those moments when I am depending on Him.
And so, it’s genuinely like if you are bored in your faith, exercise it. When we find ourselves stiff, your muscles are stiff, what do you need to do? Get up and move, stretch, do some of those things. And so if you have gotten yourself to a place where you feel stiff in your faith, you just need a little bit of movement.
[0:41:27.9] JR: That’s good. I don’t think I would have thought about a conversation with new believers but that’s a fire answer to that question.
[0:41:35.5] MM: Oh, it gets me.
[0:41:36.3] JR: Mark Barison told me once, he’s like, “Man, you just got to…” he reads a different translation of the Bible every year.
[0:41:41.2] MM: Oh yeah.
[0:41:42.0] JR: Which I think is interesting just to get fresh perspectives on passages but also just changing the Bible study habit I think is important and honestly, a shameless plug for your book, I think picking up a commentary and doing a deeper study and giving somebody else’s perspective on a particular book of the Bible can be really helpful in this, Ecclesiastes commentaries is a really good place to start. Hey, Michelle, speaking of books.
[0:42:03.9] MM: Yes.
[0:42:04.4] JR: If we were to open up your Amazon order history, what book would we see you buying over and over and over again as gifts for other people?
[0:42:12.1] MM: Ooh, I have two right now that come to my mind. So, Larry Osborne’s Lead Like a Shepherd. Have you read that one?
[0:42:18.3] JR: I have not.
[0:42:18.9] MM: Oh, write it down. You’re going to love it.
[0:42:20.7] JR: Okay, great.
[0:42:21.1] MM: I feel like it is so – leadership for the Lord looks different. It is truly shepherding. It does feel weird sometimes because I think when you have a title that bends toward leadership but your actions bend towards shepherding, sometimes it just feels like, “How do I reconcile the difference between the two?” and so that one to me I think just clarifies what the work actually is.
[0:42:51.8] JR: That’s good.
[0:42:52.8] MM: And so I love that one and then I love a good biography too, and so I’ve already shared that I love Elisabeth Elliot, and Ellen Vaughn wrote, Becoming Elisabeth Elliot. There’s part one that’s been out for a couple of years and part two comes out in September of 2023, and so it’s about to come out. I’m very excited for that one because it is – so part one covered her childhood through when she came back to the United States after being in Ecuador, where she shared the gospel with the people who murdered her husband.
[0:43:23.4] JR: Yeah.
[0:43:23.8] MM: It’s her coming back to the United States and her writing and speaking career as well as her last couple of years, which I don’t think a lot of people know about because she ended up having dementia in the last ten years of her life were very removed from the public sphere. But the thing that I love about part one, because I haven’t read part two yet, but the thing I loved about part one so much was that there were a lot of her private journals that her daughter gave Ellen access to in writing, and it was insanely encouraging to me to see that her private conversations with the Lord sounded exactly like the public ministry that she had.
[0:44:07.0] JR: That’s good.
[0:44:07.1] MM: And so, personal conviction and encouragement to me to make sure that my private conversations with the Lord sound exactly like my public ministry. I don’t want there to be a discrepancy between the two, those were two in mind.
[0:44:20.7] JR: I love those, man, that’s really good. You were selling that Elliot biography hard. Man.
[0:44:24.9] MM: It’s really good.
[0:44:26.5] JR: Man, yeah, it’s really, really high, I’m looking at it on Amazon right now. Life’s too short to read books that have less than a five-star rating on Amazon. If it’s less than that five-star, I’m probably not giving it a read, this one clears that bar as does yours. Hey, who do you want to hear on this podcast talk about how the gospel influences the work that mere Christians do in the world?
[0:44:43.7] MM: My friend, Donna Gibbs, would be a phenomenal person. She owns a counseling practice here and she’s very involved in the AACC but she encourages me so much. She’s an expert in her field but she is also so dependent on the Lord that it is just, it’s obvious to me every time I talk to her that the Gospel is her motivator. I’d love to hear her.
[0:45:08.3] JR: I love that, that’s a good answer. You know, I don’t know that we’ve had – we haven’t had many counselors in the show.
[0:45:14.7] MM: You would love her.
[0:45:16.6] JR: We had Dr. Kurt Thompson on, who is brilliant but yeah, we got to look her up. All right, Michelle, talking to an audience of Mere Christians, a lot of them entrepreneurs like you and me but a lot not. A lot of them just working as marketers and big companies or mechanics or whatever. What’s one thing from the book of Ecclesiastes that you want to reiterate to them before we sign off?
[0:45:38.3] MM: I feel like Solomon would want me to say, “Take my word for it, fear God, keep His commands, and that’s it.” You will ultimately make the same realization and he wrote these words so that we could come to that conclusion while we still had life to live to make it count for the Gospel. You know, we didn’t get into it but he very poetically but also very realistically kind of details the process of death of what it’s like for your mind and your body to start to deteriorate before you die, and how you really do start to be limited by the body that you have the longer that you live.
And so, he is encouraging us, “Hey listen, while you still have life to live, while you still have vibrancy, make it count for the Gospel because I got to the end of my life and it was too late for me to implement what I knew.” No matter how successful, how influential, how powerful you turn out being, you’ll never outdo Him and he said, “Fear God, keep his commands” and that’s it. So, let’s take him at his word.
[0:46:42.7] JR: That’s really good. What section of Ecclesiastes does he wax poetic on death?
[0:46:48.7] MM: Ecclesiastes nine.
[0:46:50.4] JR: Ecclesiastes nine. All right, go check that out. By the way, did you read When Breath Becomes Air.
[0:46:54.7] MM: Ooh, no, I didn’t.
[0:46:55.0] JR: By Paul Kalanithi?
[0:46:57.3] MM: No.
[0:46:58.4] JR: Man, this book. This book was remarkable.
[0:47:01.2] MM: Oh wait, nope, I lied. It’s not Ecclesiastes nine. It’s Ecclesiastes 12.
[0:47:05.9] JR: Ecclesiastes 12.
[0:47:07.4] MM: Ecclesiastes 12. Yup.
[0:47:09.1] JR: You got to read When Breath Becomes Air.
[0:47:10.4] MM: Okay.
[0:47:10.7] JR: This is a neurosurgeon, who was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer when he was 36 and start writing this book about observing death and then experiencing death. And he died before the book was finished but somebody finished the book for him. I can’t remember who it was. It’s an extraordinary book. It wasn’t too explicit but I’m pretty sure he came to faith in Christ in the middle of this crisis. Like, his pastor’s endorsement of it was like, really, really clear, it’s terrific, it’s terrific. So, anyone wanting to get in the weeds on death, go check out Ecclesiastes 12 and When Breath Becomes Air.
Hey, Michelle, friend, I love your work, I love you as a friend so much. Thank you, I just want to commend you for the extraordinary work you’re doing for the glory of God and the good of others for the terrific work you did in this commentary and reminding us of our God-given freedom to enjoy our work when we have eternity in mind, when we lose ourselves as one of billions of actors in this kingdom building drama and just thank you for always pointing us back to Jesus.
[0:48:19.1] MM: Oh, likewise.
[0:48:19.7] JR: Thank you for always pointing us back to the Gospel in everything that we do. I’m a super fan of yours. Hey friends, the commentary is called, Conversational Commentary on Ecclesiastes: Wisdom to Live for Heaven While on Earth, written by my friend here, Michelle Myers. Michelle, thanks for hanging out with us.
[0:48:37.9] MM: Thanks for having me, friend, I appreciate you so much.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:48:41.8] JR: Michelle reminded me when we stopped recording that the book of Ecclesiastes is a pretty great framework for thinking about and talking about the gospel with the lost in the West today, right? Because all of our coworkers whose searching for meaning, searching for happiness, in all the places that we used to search and all the wrong places, right? Here, Solomon is warning them, and offering them a better way.
And throughout the commentary Michelle wrote, there’s a lot of great discussion questions that are primarily to be used in small groups, but you can take any one of these questions and use them to start conversations with your lost coworkers, to move conversations from the surface to the serious, to the spiritual.
Hey guys, thank you so much for tuning in this week, I’ll see you next time.
[END]