A Word in Season: With Your Might (Ecclesiastes 9:10)

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Now is a time for working. The wise preacher in Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and verse 10 tells us whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work, or device, or knowledge, or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

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That kind of understanding is reflected in our Lord's own sense of responsibility when he said in John chapter 9,

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I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work.

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The same spirit animates the apostles. They have a sense that their time is short and that there is a need to press on with the things that have been put in their hands.

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And I wonder whether or not you and I respond in a similar way to the circumstances that face us to the opportunities that we have and to the need that there is in our day to be getting on with good work.

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The preacher in Ecclesiastes says whatever your hand finds to do.

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Now he's not referring to wickedness. He's not referring to laziness. Certainly he's exhorting us in this context to live and to serve joyfully as those who understand not only that there is something that needs to be done here, but there is something also which is to come.

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Matthew Henry says that this is the day of work, the day of recompense or the day of payment is coming.

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And so whatever good thing our hand finds to do, whatever genuine opportunity there is for us to pursue, we ought to do it with our might.

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We ought to give ourselves to it with a measure of focus, concentration, and that in an age that is characterized by procrastination and distraction.

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I've sometimes said to my own children that in the kingdom of the distracted, the concentrating man is king.

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And so it is for so many of us. It's not so much that we are busy, although our lives are full.

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It is that we are pulled in so many different directions. And the chances are that even if you're engaging with what's being said to you at this very moment, it's in a context where you could spend or waste hours of your time and your energy just following a thousand different threads.

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The things that we ought to do are so easily put off until tomorrow.

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There is what's sometimes called the tyranny of the urgent, how things that demand to be done now press in upon us and distract us from the more important things.

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But here we're exhorted. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.

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Consider what is at stake. Think about what is truly important and devote yourself, your mind, your strength of heart and flesh to that particular task.

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What you have to do, do quickly, do well, do thoroughly, do completely.

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Do it as you've been asked to do it, if that's right. If the Lord has given you opportunities to serve him, don't hold back.

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Don't be the non -volunteer who takes a step back when the opportunity comes. When there's scope for service, do it with your might.

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Give yourself to the labour without holding back. And why should you do that?

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Because now is the working day. There is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

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You will not always have opportunity to bring glory to God or do good to men in this world.

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You will soon stand before the judge of the living and the dead, and you will give an account for the deeds that you have done in your body.

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And so there ought to be upon us this sense that this is the day in which we've been given to work and there's a call upon us, there's a responsibility and an opportunity to engage in the work that we're given to do.

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Rather than distraction, rather than procrastination, rather than diversion, we ought to be giving ourselves to what is of first importance, pursuing those opportunities in accordance with our calling, our circumstances that God has given us to do, and seeking by all means to bring glory and honour to his name and to do good to all men, especially to those who are the household of faith.

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So that whether we pillow our head at the end of the day or whether we lay down our heads at the end of our lives, we may do so in peace and with a good conscience that when