On Our Need To Control Our Own Lives
“What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Book of Ecclesiastes. 1:3)
Have you ever found yourself wondering if the payoff is really worth all the effort? I can recall a summer a few years back when I was working long hours at a particularly harsh and dirty job. Early mornings, late nights, and sore muscles had me often asking that very thing. Was the $12.50/hour I was making actually worth it?
The writer of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes asked a similar question during his search for meaning in the world. He also wanted to know if the payoff was really worth it all. “What does a man gain for all of his toil?” Is there even a point?
It’s a good question.
The Hebrew word for ‘toil’ is a great word. Amal. It literally means wearing effort. It’s a word most often ascribed to the idea of hard labour. Drudgery and misery in work. While this is correct, it actually has a broader meaning that I believe carries a much more significant weight for us today.
Amal. Wearing effort; whether of body or mind.
The writer of Ecclesiastes was on a journey to find meaning by looking at all the efforts of humanity. Pleasure and money and wisdom and fame. They all fell short in providing any lasting satisfaction or significance. Each is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. A striving after something you will never catch and have no control over. And yet we pursue anyways. Spending our days trying to control the uncontrollable. This is amal.
Having [the illusion of] control over our lives is an important thing to most people. Where we go, what we do, how it all happens. This is what we strive for. This is what we chase; and yet, it can never be caught. Control can never be had. This is a terrible thing. And it is affecting millions of people every day.
Including you.
Worry, stress, anxiety. These are the symptoms of the desperate pursuit of the uncontrollable. We suffer from overstress, ulcers, panic attacks, sleep problems, and other anxiety disorders because of this need to control that which can never be controlled. We are ultimately helpless when it comes to our own lives and are absolutely terrified to admit it. Did you know that the word worry comes from an old English word for ‘strangle’? It means to seize by the throat and tear. Those of you who suffer from anxiety understand that feeling exactly. Helpless and terrified. Wearing effort. Amal. What do we gain for all our worry? Is there a payoff for all our stress? What is the point of all the anxious thoughts?
Meaningless. A chasing after the wind.
It strikes me that amal, this wearing effort, this worry, stress, and anxiety, these feelings of terrified helplessness, all stem from humanity trying to control our own lives. When we strive to satisfy our wants. When we seek to complete our feelings of incompleteness. Worry is the result of humans playing god.
But what happens when we let God be God?
What happens when, rather than desperately and anxiously trying to control our lives, we pause in complete trust and surrender to God and let him have the control? We cease our worrying and toiling and experience the exact opposite of amal.
We discover peace.
This is another great Hebrew word. Shalom. It means wholeness. It means to be completed or finished. It stems from a root word that insinuates safety in body and mind. Peace of body. Peace of mind.
Peace within.
If amal is what we get when we try to control our lives; shalom is what we find when we surrender the control to God. While one brings a choking sense of terror and helplessness, the other brings a sense of safety and wholeness. One is a frantic attempt to catch the wind, the other is rest and trust and peace.
Shalom. Be still and let God be God.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?…But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6)
