Bob Tamasy
We’re just days away from our annual holiday oxymoron: Labor Day. It’s the day every year that most of us celebrate work – by taking the day off from work.
Many of us eagerly look forward to weekends and plan our next vacations with much anticipation, but it’s work that keeps the wheels of progress turning. The range of jobs and career paths available is greater than ever. Once a predominantly agrarian society, the United States saw that forever change with the Industrial Revolution, then computer technology. Yes, we still have farms and farmers, but even the work done there has been revolutionized.
We’ve got doctors, nurses, CPAs, lawyers, engineers, architects, teachers, homemakers, barbers, estheticians, artists, musicians, business executives, salespeople, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, entrepreneurs, scientists, retail clerks, first responders, masons, handymen (handypeople?), writers, editors, administrative assistants, financial planners, computer programmers, construction workers, technicians of many kinds, professional athletes, librarians. And that’s just scratching the surface of vocational options we have today.
For some, work is where they find their sense of worth and meaning. I don’t believe that is exactly what God intended, but in the Scriptures, we see that work was ordained from the start. The Creation account in Genesis 1-2 shows the Lord busily at work, creating the heavens and the earth, light, the stars, all the various forms of life, and finally humankind.
Then He assigned the work of maintaining His creation to us. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground…. I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food” (Genesis 1:28-29).
Unfortunately, Adam and Eve chose to disregard God’s command not to eat from one specific tree in the garden of Eden, and that’s when work got complicated. One of the consequences of the first couple’s sin was that work would no longer be easy:
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you…. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground…” (Genesis 3:17-19).
Does this passage strike a chord with you? Are there days when you wake up and instead of saying, “Good morning, Lord!” you grumble, “Good Lord, morning!”?
Yes, work is often hard, even if your vocation or career is something you enjoy. Manual labor can be back-breaking; administrative and clerical work can be mentally taxing. Deadlines, budgets and other work demands can send us into a stress-filled tailspin. Nevertheless, the Bible tells us repeatedly that work – in whatever form it takes – is noble. And sacred.
In fact, 1 Corinthians 3:9 declares, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” And if we ever wonder what we can do to serve the Lord, Colossians 3:23-24 tells us one way is striving to do our jobs well: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
King Solomon of Israel, author of the largely non-uplifting Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, did have some hopeful insights about work. After commenting about the frustrations of life, including the pursuits of pleasure and wealth, he observed, “Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him – for this is his lot” (Ecclesiastes 5:18).
Solomon then reached a kind of good-news, bad-news conclusion: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
Clearly, our work is a way of serving God – and serving others. The grocery clerk working to earn money for college is stocking shelves where we find our canned goods, drinks and bread. The person in the nail salon also seeking a paycheck is helping some young woman look just right for her special evening. The road worker paving the street in the hot sun is helping to ensure we have a smooth drive – without potholes – to wherever we’re headed.
After God commanded the Israelites to construct an elaborate tabernacle for worship, He equipped certain individuals with all the abilities that would be needed. “He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as craftsmen, designers, embroiders in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers…” (Exodus 35:35).
In a similar manner, the Lord has gifted each of us with unique skills, talents and passions for fulfilling the calling He has place on our lives. As the title of a book written years ago by Doug Sherman and William Hendricks informs us, Your Work Matters to God. Maybe we need to be like Snow White’s seven dwarfs who, on their way to the mines, would sing, “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go.”
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Robert J. Tamasy is a veteran journalist, former newspaper editor, and magazine editor. Bob has written, co-authored and edited more than 20 books. These include ”Marketplace Ambassadors”; “Business At Its Best: Timeless Wisdom from Proverbs for Today’s Workplace”; “Tufting Legacies,” “The Heart of Mentoring,” and “Pursuing Life With a Shepherd’s Heart.” He writes and edits a weekly business meditation, “Monday Manna,” which is translated into nearly 20 languages and distributed via email around the world by CBMC International. The address for Bob's blog is www.bobtamasy.blogspot.com. His email address is btamasy@comcast.net.