If this is truly “all there is” on any given day to our work, or our lives for that matter, we are indeed in trouble and Ecclesiastes provides as honest and true a description of this truth as can be found. And yet sometimes, when I got to the end of a long day, all that was left was a deep sigh. “Why does this job feel so empty?”

As we reflect on all the goodness brought by the innovative and industrious production of American labor, there is cause enough for a day of celebration. But why exactly do we celebrate our work? And, maybe more importantly, why should we celebrate our work?

I’d like to explore how people seek satisfaction in their Jobs. There are apparently only 19 percent of the adult workforce that claim that they are extremely satisfied by their work (Barna Group research in 2014). With so many options available, why is it that deep satisfaction is still so illusory?

On any given day I might finish a few of these or spend several hours doing tedious editing on a section of curriculum for one of our programs. A book I read over the holiday had a chapter that caught my eye and was a welcome return to the goodness of even our daily tasks of minutiae.