Week #1: Nothing Lasts Forever: A Theology of Labor and Trust
Blog Series Intention Recap
The Teacher in Ecclesiastes offers ancient wisdom that helps us see our lives with sober clarity. His words challenge our illusions of control and permanence as we begin a new year, pointing us to God’s eternal provision and purpose.
This post is the main page of the series “Nothing New.” Click here to see the rest of the posts.
Let’s jump into Week #1:
Lasting hope cannot come from what passes away. Trusting in the result of our labor to bring us benefits that will last is foolish. As Christians, we cannot trust in our efforts for provision but must trust God for whatever will be needed.
Why it Matters:
Earthly efforts are fleeting – Ecclesiastes reminds us that all labor under the sun is hevel—a vapor. It cannot bear the weight of our hope.
True provision comes daily from God – Jesus teaches us to ask for “daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), calling us into trust rather than self-sufficiency.
Labor is meaningful when offered to God – We work not for lasting earthly gain but to participate in God's purposes, entrusting results to Him.
Wisdom begins with embracing our limits – Our finitude is a grace. It redirects our ambition toward faithful dependence on God.
Go Deeper:
The turning of the calendar year presents both an opportunity and a temptation. It is an opportunity to recalibrate our priorities, recommit to healthy patterns, and renew our dependence on God. But it is also a temptation to believe that, with the right amount of effort, discipline, or planning, we can control the outcomes of our lives.
The Teacher in Ecclesiastes offers an antidote to such illusions. His voice, ancient and weathered by experience, cuts through our hopeful resolutions with a sobering truth: “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, ESV). While his words may appear bleak on the surface, they are in fact an invitation to locate our hope not in the things of earth but in the eternal sufficiency of God.
The Vocabulary of Vapor
The Hebrew word translated “vanity” is hevel. It literally refers to a vapor or mist—something real yet insubstantial, present but ungraspable. The Teacher uses this term thirty-eight times in Ecclesiastes, driving home the fleeting nature of everything under the sun. His purpose is not to lead us into despair but to point us toward a proper theology of labor, time, and trust.
Our modern world idolizes productivity and permanence. We strive to leave legacies, amass wealth, and build platforms. Yet the Teacher would remind us: nothing under the sun endures. Our accomplishments are temporal. Our work, however noble, is perishable. Like mist on a cold morning, it rises and disappears.
What, then, is the purpose of our labor? Is it futile to build, to plan, or to strive? Not at all. The problem is not labor itself, but misplaced trust. When we look to the work of our hands for security, significance, or salvation, we labor in vain.
The Frailty of Our Provision
The words of Jesus in Matthew 6 confront us with a similar challenge. In teaching His disciples how to pray, He instructs them: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11, ESV). These words, so familiar to many, are radically countercultural. They call us to live in daily dependence, not annual sufficiency.
Jesus does not teach us to pray for tomorrow’s provision or next year’s increase. He teaches us to ask for what we need today. In doing so, He echoes the wilderness experience of Israel, when God provided manna one day at a time. Attempts to hoard the bread resulted in rot and worms (Exodus 16:20). The message was clear then and remains clear now: God provides for the moment, and His provision teaches us to trust, not to store.
This posture of daily trust stands in stark contrast to our cultural assumptions. In many Western contexts, personal worth is often measured by what one achieves or possesses. To depend on another—even God—is perceived as weakness. Yet the gospel redefines dependence as faithfulness. To trust God for our provision is not an act of resignation, but of worship.
The Delusion of Permanence
The Teacher is not arguing that nothing matters, but that nothing earthly endures. This distinction is essential. If one adopts a nihilistic interpretation of Ecclesiastes, one misses the invitation embedded in the text. The impermanence of earthly things is not an excuse for despair, but a summons to seek what is eternal.
Jesus reorients our perspective in Matthew 6:19–20: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” The folly is not in working or storing—it is in where we store. Eternal investment must supersede temporal ambition.
We are called, then, to participate in God’s ongoing work without trusting in the work itself. The apostle Paul would later echo this theology in 1 Corinthians 3:6–7, saying, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” We work, but we do not control outcomes. We plant, but we do not produce harvests. Our labor is an offering, not a guarantee.
The Grace of Limits
The limitations of time, strength, and understanding are not curses to overcome, but graces to receive. The Teacher’s emphasis on the fleeting nature of human effort is meant to humble us into dependence. As the psalmist prays, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12, ESV). Wisdom begins with the recognition of our temporality.
Acknowledging our limits does not mean we stop working. Rather, it transforms the nature of our work. We labor not to secure our future, but to participate in God’s present. We engage in vocation not to build kingdoms for ourselves, but to reflect the glory of the King.
This shift in motivation liberates us. We are freed from the tyranny of results, from the anxiety of scarcity, and from the burden of self-made significance. Instead, we labor with open hands, offering our time, energy, and gifts back to the God who gave them.
How does this help me understand, “Nothing New?”
Daily Bread in a Year of Ambition
As a new year begins, many will make plans, set goals, and chase progress. These are not evil in themselves. Yet for the Christian, every ambition must be baptized in dependence. We may plan, but we do so with James 4:15 in our hearts: “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
What would it look like to begin this year not with bold declarations of what we will do, but with humble prayers for daily bread? What if our resolutions were shaped by our dependence rather than our determination?
The Teacher calls us away from illusion and into clarity. Jesus leads us away from self-reliance and into trust. The Spirit equips us to live each day not as masters of our destiny, but as stewards of God’s provision.In the end, Ecclesiastes 1:2 and Matthew 6:11 converge to form a single message: All human striving is vain apart from God. But in God, labor becomes worship. In Christ, daily bread becomes a feast. And in the Spirit, our lives, though fleeting, become eternally significant.
So let the new year begin—not with confidence in ourselves, but with renewed trust in the God who gives, who sustains, and who lasts forever.
