13th February 2024

13th February 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ecclesiastes 4v7-8)


Message (Scott Woodburn)


The Chief Executive Officer of Apple is a man called Tim Cook and if you ever worked for him you’d realise that Mr Cook runs an incredibly tight ship. In a meeting of Apple’s board, Cook announced that the problems in Apple’s Chinese factories needed to be solved as a matter of urgency. The meeting continued for another few minutes before Cook looked to one his fellow board members and told her “why are you still here?” Cook expected his colleague to be on a plane to China within the hour.


The same Tim Cook has been known to send emails to his colleagues at 4:30am and he has held late night meetings on Sunday evening to prepare for the early morning meetings on Monday. I don’t know Tim Cook and this may or may not be true, but I think Tim Cook works too hard.


Solomon described an individual of his own time who had driven away everyone close to him (v8) for the sake of his work. This man’s eyes were never satisfied with riches and so he kept on working (v8b). He had no one close to him to benefit from all his work and he was so busy that he deprived himself of any pleasure. At no point did he stop to ask “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” (v8c)


That’s an important question isn’t it? To the workaholic or the man with a thirst for riches or the woman who puts work before family…what’s it all for? The Covid pandemic was awful but there was a blessing in the forced change which came to our pace of life. We weren’t allowed out of the house and so there were no endless meetings or driving the children to their activities or extra hours at the office…life was slower and perhaps life was fuller.


You may or may not agree with that sentiment but life has now returned to normal and we are back to one hundred miles per hour living. So let me ask you…what’s it all for? Does the pace of your day bring you closer to your loved ones and to Christ? Alternatively, does the pace of your day keep you from important relationships as you endlessly run to try and stay on life’s hamster wheel?


Only you can answer those questions but Solomon was sure that the man he described was involved in a vain and unhappy business. When it is all said and done, I hope those words aren’t used to describe our lives.
  
Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC


Q67 Which is the sixth commandment? The sixth commandment is, Thou shalt not kill.
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