Welcome back to the podcast. On this podcast, we fight against the love of money. We talk about an

inordinate love of shopping, of how to live out of wartime simplicity and financial contentment

and how to enjoy the gifts that God has given us.

This question today is sort of back in that stream of thought because in the first half of October, we're reading the book of Ecclesiastes together in the Navigator's Bible

reading plan, and that leads us to a question about work and the fruit of our work

over texts in our current reading.

Here's today's question from a listener named Brian.

Hello, Pastor John.

I hope you're doing well.

I've been reflecting on a few verses in Ecclesiastes lately, particularly.

Ecclesiastes 24, 313, 322, and 519.

And those are texts that we've read from October 3rd to the 7th, which will be tomorrow.

Those texts repeatedly speak about enjoying the fruit of our labor as a gift from God to be enjoyed.

But I struggle a bit to know exactly what that looks like in real life.

The idea that there's nothing better for a person than to eat and drink

and find enjoyment in his toil, to Ecclesiastes 2.24, and that it is God's gift that everyone

should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil, that's 313, is something I want to

understand and live out better.

As a businessman, I want to honor God with fair dealings, honesty, and trustworthiness,

and I think I get that part, even if I don't live up to it flawlessly.

But I'm unsure how to process my work when it's finished in the evenings and the weekends.

What does it look like to reflect on work done well and find joy in it as a gift from God,

...