It is 5 minute Friday in which I write feverishly for five short minutes, find a picture to fit my story and then post without reworking and rewording the entire thing before being brave enough to publish! This week the topic is … Continue reading
My Friday effusion of words in 5 minutes. The theme today is together, something I have both been greatly blessed with and am also missing all in a single week. Go: Alone at work in the middle of the night. … Continue reading
A blog post by Ann Voskamp a few months ago in which she discussed the question of How Christian [women] May Create got me wondering how the process/art/work of creating might look for Christian men? Here are some musings and … Continue reading
I am currently at home with the ‘flu.
Fortunately I get a certain amount of paid sick leave so can take occasional days off work and still be paid. This is a huge blessing, it also has made me aware of the even greater blessing that God has given me on an ongoing basis for over twenty years – the ability to work and earn my keep.
It is easy to think that it is my own strength that enables me to work and earn money, but while I have to do the work, it is God who gives me the power to work (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).
Knowing it is God who gives me the strength to work, and that it is His will for me to work and not burden others, is reassuring when I am feeling unwell and not up to a day’s work. It is certainly possible that I could someday become so unwell as to be unable to work, but this is only a cold and tomorrow I get to go back to work.
While all of us have days when work is a burden, the knowledge that God is blessing me with the ability to do work and through this means to provide for myself and my family makes even those days easier to endure.
…aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 ESV)
In the end it is a blessing to be able to work, a way to serve on multiple levels.
446) Listening to The Myst of Eden: Hope
447) My 2-year-old son wanting a “cuggle” (cuddle).
448) Weekend holiday with friends.
449) Kids playing at the beach.
450) A hot shower and electric blanket when feverish with chills.
451) Breakfast lovingly prepared by my daughter.
Image of sick man: iStockphoto
For most of us, to ask why we work amounts to a pretty stupid question because the answer is obvious — we work to get paid so we can buy food, clothes, pay for somewhere to live and pay the bills. Very few have so much money that they don’t need to work.
This rather mundane, pragmatic take on work is also biblical; Paul tells us that if anyone is not prepared to work they should not expect to be fed and we are to do honest work to provide for ourselves and our dependents (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12, Ephesians 4:28, and 1 Timothy 5:8). We are also called to put a full effort into the work we do, the admonition of Colossians 3:23-24 indicating that half-hearted work efforts and procrastination have been around for a very long time!
I find this pragmatic view of work in the Bible to be a relief in comparison to the currently popular ideals portrayed by ‘career experts’ pushing ideas such as: “A person’s worth is often measured by the career success or failings“. There is often an assumption that you can find a job which is a perfect (or at least near-perfect) match for your skills, experience and personal motivations. Yet for most of us the whole career experience is more like the verb: move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction (i.e., down the dirt track of our lives in the rickety go-kart of our employability!). Very few people have any real ability to actually plan their career, the rest of us take the best job available at the time we are needing one.
In contrast, the Bible teaches that work is ordained by God (Genesis 2:15) and so is a necessary part of life but it has also been tainted with futility by the fall (Genesis 3:17-19, Romans 8:20), meaning that we will always have bad days on the job when nothing goes as we would wish. Certainly there is a lot of choice available in jobs now, but the ideal job for you (or me) simply does not exist because we are sinful and so will bring sinful attitudes or behaviours to our work, and the work itself is subject to the curse of futility so will frustrate us sooner or later.
Therefore, after a crap day at work when you might wonder if you have missed your life’s calling, relax. If you have put in a day’s work and were paid for it this strongly indicates that you are in fact living up to your calling in Christ so far as work goes.
I took a different route home on Thursday evening to pick up our car from the mechanic. Because it was not my usual routine I noticed things differently, like the people I passed looking wearied and beaten down as if … Continue reading
I once had a job in which I was interrupted every 6 minutes on average. That is no longer an issue in my work, but curiously it seems that I have an habitual tendency to seek a change of focus … Continue reading
In Genesis 3:17-19 God consigns Adam to a lifelong battle with weeds. Churches are not exempt from this relentless toil.
On this past Saturday afternoon half our church turned up for a ‘summer clean’ of the buildings and grounds. We certainly toiled, the women ‘glowed’ and the guys dripped with the sweat of their brows. Floors, toilets, ovens and benches were scrubbed. Rooms were tidied, freezers moved, trees chopped down, weedeating done (did God mean for the curse to push us to such extremes?!), culminating with a barbecue dinner.
Despite the philosophical futility of cleaning and weeding, it was a great time together. There is something strengthening about working alongside one another which builds fellowship even when conversation is minimal. When we are exhorted in Hebrews 10:25 to not give up meeting together this need not be limited to church worship. Our labours together in kitchens, gardens, workshops and offices can similarly honour God.
