The Point of It All
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As kids, we often think about or we’re expected to think about what it is we want to do when we grow up. The reasons are practical as well as ontological, meaning it comes from our very being.
Practically, 99.9% of us have to do something. We weren’t born with trust funds. Membership in the club of the idle rich isn’t an option for us and so food, clothing, and shelter will be things for which we have to earn money but that’s a good thing because I believe we were created to work.
Back up a minute. I believe we were created. We didn’t get here as a result of random processes. Our existence was conceived in the mind of an all-powerful, eternal, beautiful Creator who invested us with His image. That means we have dignity, value, and honor simply because we are. There’s nothing in any of those categories that has to be earned.
But the image is also functional in that there’s something we were born to do and that’s work. To not work is to deny a basic building block of what sets us apart as human beings. Animals do things to survive, to not die, and experience pleasure and satiation as a result. We, on the other hand, experience fulfillment. Our brains have the ability to get to the end of the day and conclude that a job was well-done…or not. The opposite is certainly a possibility and if we aren’t working or we aren’t working from a proper perspective we are capable of being frustrated or unfulfilled.
To be clear, this has nothing to do with a paycheck. The practical side of work means we have to make money in order to buy necessities but mothers who raise children for no money still work. I hope that’s obvious.
A few seconds ago, I used the word perspective. Work must occupy its proper place in our lives. I think this can best be summed up by Paul’s words in Colossians 3:23-24:
Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.
We work in order to serve the Lord. We work in order to live out the fact that we were created in the image of God. This may come out as a, “duh,” but this means working with God and not against Him. Plying your trade by selling illicit drugs can’t be done, “as for the Lord.”
But it also means going with His calling on your life, much like we can either paddle with or against a current. Discovering this calling isn’t complicated. It isn’t easy but it isn’t complicated. It’s found in Mark 12:29-31. A scribe asked Jesus what the greatest commandment in the Law was and He answered thusly:
“The foremost is, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ “The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Love God and love others. Do you want to be fulfilled? This is how it happens. That’s it. That’s all it is. Whether your an accountant, an engineer, a pastor, a doctor, a missionary, or any of an almost countless number of vocations, this is what’s supposed to come across in your work and since the Bible is also clear about what it means to love God and others, we know that it includes the proclamation of the Gospel, the good news that Jesus died for our sins and that by trusting in Him we can have a relationship with the Lord both here and in heaven for all eternity.
As you begin your Monday or Tuesday, or whenever you read this, please know that God loves you and all He asks of you is that you love Him and love others by making clear as you have the opportunity, that God loves others enough to have sent His Son to die so that they could be made whole, now and forever.