The main character in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, the Professor, tell us that work is meaningless. First it is temporary ("under the sun" 2:22). Second, we will eventually be unappreciated ("I must leave them to the one who comes after me" 2:18). Third, you may give your best energies and most creative gifts to a job which may be taken over by a fool (“Who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish?” 2:19). Fourth, you are certain to experience injustice in the workplace (“For people may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to others who have not toiled for it” 2:21). Finally, over-work is inevitable: (“What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving?” 2:22). So work "under the sun" (a code phrase in this book) is impermanent, unappreciated, unproductive, unfair and seductive.

Surprisingly the Professor does not counsel us to cope with this by dropping out or squeezing all the pleasure we can out of life, including our work-life. The reason is breathtaking: he is convinced that it is God's will for work to be useless! And God speaking through this Professor asks us to reflect on our experience of work because he wants to call us to faith in a God who has determined that work should be useless. There is more revelation and faith in this man's dark ponderings than in many Christian testimonies of get-rich-quick and exhortations to praise the Lord on the job.

This question probes our souls deeply. If work proves to be meaningless then we are invited to conclude that we were not made for work but for God. If the Professor is right then we will not find satisfaction in our work through faith in God (the current "Christian" work heresy); instead we will find satisfaction in our God through our experience of work. It is a subtle but telling distinction. It is the difference faith makes.

So this deep experience of meaninglessness we share with the Professor turns out to be an inspired frustration. His holy doubt gives us the opportunity to find in God what we cannot find in work under the sun. Work is an evangelist to take us to Christ. And the gospel we hear from Jesus is not that if we accept him we will be insanely happy, successful and totally satisfied in our jobs, but that we will find satisfaction in Jesus in our work. He alone can fill the God-shaped vacuum in our souls. So it is not just the Old Testament Professor but Jesus that asks this probing question. With absolute courtesy Jesus comes to us in the workplace not to tell us what to do with our lives but to ask what we are discovering in our search for meaning in our work. And then with infinite grace he offers himself.