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Presented by Lauren Stibgen

If you always want more, you will never enjoy what you have. Have you ever thought about that? Is your striving for more causing an imbalance in life? What leaves you wanting more?

Then I saw that all toil and skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor (Ecclesiastes 4:4a ESV).

If envy is driving you to work more, to earn more, to have more, you need to pause and reflect. What enjoyment will you have with something if the reason you are working for it stems from envy? In fact, once you achieve this thing you may gain something even worse than the envy­­—pride.

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18 ESV).

Achieving anything that causes you to feel pride leads to fleeting satisfaction. Ecclesiastes further warns: He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income, this is also vanity (Ecclesiastes 5:10 ESV). Earning a good income and trying to better yourself is not inherently wrong, but if your toil is for the wrong reasons, you simply will never be satisfied.

Perhaps you are working more hours to save for something that you need. Or, maybe you are trying for a promotion that comes with an increase in pay. Where is this desire coming from? If it comes from a genuine place, where you are not comparing yourself to others or continually chasing for more, this is not necessarily bad. It is when you are always needing more and more. Or when you are striving to keep up with other people.

Hard work is valued by God when it works for his kingdom. Think of the Proverbs 31 woman. She buys and sells and rises when it is still night. She provides food for her household and for her maidens. Her lamp doesn’t go out at night but she opens her hand to the poor and the needy (Proverbs 31:18,20). Hard work to gather more for yourself will never fill, but hard work that will give to the glory of the Kingdom will always feel good. We are called to see the needy and love.

Think about what you are working for today. Are you striving because you are coveting? Pray today! “Lord, change my heart. Help me to see where I am striving for material things that will never fill. Help me to see how I can use my time, treasure and talent to give to those you care about the most.”