Work

"How was work today?" Not an uncommon question. Clear enough. We all know what it means. But ... what is this thing called "work"? To some it is whatever you do to get by. That's it. A necessary evil. To men (for the large part) it's part of your definition. "What do you do?" Very common question near the beginning of "Hi, my name is ____. What's yours?" Because what you do defines you. To Christians there is "full-time ministry" and then there are the rest of us. To us there are generally pastors who have "a calling" and then the rest of us who do a job, that necessary evil to get by. The Bible, of course, will have none of this.

Work predates sin. Did you know that? The first thing that Adam did before he had a wife was to name all the animals. A job. A calling. "Now, wait," you might object, "that wasn't 'a calling'. It was just a task to perform." Well, he was called by God to do it, wasn't he? It was an assignment by His Maker. But, okay, let's call it a "task". Certainly his primary job wasn't "a task". "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it" (Gen 2:15) That's a calling. And after Eve was created, they were given assignments. "Be fruitful and multiply." And, of course, they were co-workers in the task of keeping the garden. "Fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen 1:28). Adam and Eve, then, had a calling, a vocation. It was not a punishment. It was not a product of sin. And it was good ... no, very good.

We know the word "vocation". You know ... "vocation school". It's where folks who can't really do the jobs that require a higher education go to learn their occupations. That kind of thing. But surely, if you pause, you can see where it comes from. It comes from the same Latin root as "vocal". The root means "to call". Obviously, then, a vocation is ... a calling. We like to think of it as a job for which we have a strong inclination, but originally it simply meant a job to which one was called by God. We see a sharp distinction between the sacred and the secular. It is, however, a fabricated distinction. We know this because God made both and it was very good. And since God demands control of every aspect of our existence, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that this would include the "good" thing He created called "work"?

Surely we Christians know that we do, in fact, have a vocation -- a calling from God. We are to "let your light so shine before men" and "make disciples of all nations". We are to be ambassadors for Christ. We are to be living sacrifices. We know all this. But ... isn't this all part of the same task given Adam? Isn't this all part of "tending the garden", of "being fruitful"? Adam and Eve were tasked with being God's representatives on Earth ... and so are we.

Without making the formal and lengthy argument, let me ask you a question. How would it change your daily life if you actually believed that the job you were doing was a calling from God in your ministry to the world? If you actually believed that tending to the children and washing the floors or flipping burgers or designing new technology or writing software or ... if you actually believed that the work you currently have before you was a divine ministry whose source and for whom you performed it was God, how would your daily, hour-by-hour, minute-to-minute attitudes change? If you understood that your job and the way that you did it was a direct reflection of the character of Christ, how would it change your view and how you do your job? If all this is true, maybe we should make some changes, eh?