Who Are You Working So Hard For?

Scroll through the contacts in your phone.

Hundreds of names. Coworkers, clients, the guy who fixed your truck, parents from the ball team. Now ask yourself which one you could call at 11:00 at night and say, “I am not okay.”

For a lot of fathers, the list is very short. For some, it is empty.

It did not happen on purpose. Life filled up with work and kids. Maybe a marriage ended and the friends went with it. Friendships slowly turned into occasional texts. Now you are around people all day, and nobody really knows you.

Read the verses just before this one, because they describe a man many fathers will recognize. The Preacher writes, “There is a man all alone, without even a son or brother. And though there is no end to his labor, his eyes are still not content with his wealth”. And the question he has to face is, “For whom do I toil and bereave my soul of enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 4:8).

That is a portrait of a man who works so hard for his people that he ends up alone. The Preacher calls it “futile,” from a Hebrew word for a vapor, something that slips through your fingers.

Then comes the answer. “Two are better than one.” If one falls, the other lifts him up. Two lying together on a cold night keep each other warm (Ecclesiastes 4:11), a real concern in a world without heat. One alone can be overpowered, but two can stand together, and “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

God did not design you to carry life alone.

Jesus knew what it was to have friends fail Him. On the night He was betrayed, He went to a place called Gethsemane. The name means “oil press.” It was likely an olive grove on the Mount of Olives where olives were crushed for oil, and it is hard to miss the fitting picture of what Jesus was about to go through there.

He took His three closest friends deeper into the garden and told them, “My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me” (Matthew 26:38). He came back and found them asleep. “Were you not able to keep watch with Me for one hour?” (Matthew 26:40). It happened three times. Hours later, when the soldiers came, “all the disciples deserted Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56).

Then on the cross He cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). Those words are the first line of Psalm 22. Many scholars note that in Jesus’ day, quoting the opening line of a psalm could call the whole psalm to mind. Psalm 22 begins in abandonment, describes hands and feet pierced and clothing divided by lot, and ends in victory, proclaiming “all that He has done” (Psalm 22:31).

That cry was something more than loneliness. Jesus was bearing the judgment for sin, something no one else has ever carried or will ever have to.

Because He bore it, those who belong to Him have a promise He kept at the highest cost: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

That promise does not replace your need for people. God usually keeps you company through His people. But it does mean the risk of letting one brother in is smaller than it feels. The One who knows you best has already stayed.