Dear Faith Family,
Do you love that for which you work and those whom you work with? That was the question we asked each other on Sunday.
The question is not, "Do you like your work or all the duties of your daily labor?" Nor, "Are you fond of everyone you work alongside?" In asking, I don't assume that the labors of living are always easy, enjoyable, or even chosen. But, we did presume that,
"whatever is done to make, manufacture, construct your life—in word and actions" is worth "working from your soul as for the Lord..."
(Colossians 3:17,23)
As we said, work is not fundamentally what you get paid to do. Instead, work is everything we do in cultivating (making, sustaining) life. Work is all those daily labors done to make a life with God and with others, good (or not), in our time and place.
Our desire for our work to be good (instead of not), in step with the good of God's design and destiny, compels us to work from the soul, from our complete self.
We know that submitting ourselves wholly to Jesus, connected and committed to Life Himself, is the only Way to True life now and forever. In the same manner, a life wholly committed to Jesus is a life wholly committed to the "good works" for which we were crafted (Eph. 2:10). Just as in life, so in the heart for work: what is submitted to Him, is raised with Him, and so is good.
But submitting the soul to something or someone can not be out of obligation or for earnings. Our soul can only be so committed through love. Only in love can our labors in living be in harmony with the "very good" of God's creating and re-creating (Col. 3:10,14).
And so, we return to the question, Do you love that for which you work? Have you given yourself wholly to the good work you were crafted to contribute in the "determined allotted period and boundaries of your dwelling place" (Acts 17:26)? Do you love those you work with? Have you given yourself wholly to the good of those whose labor in living you share?
In truth, much like our relationship with Jesus, our relationship with work is a matter of maturation, a growing into completeness over time and through the ups and downs of passing seasons. So don't fret; just follow if, in asking the Spirit to examen your heart for work, you discover you still have some ways to go. Nevertheless, there is something holy, something already "blessed," within submitting to the love of that and those for whom we have been made. Wendell Berry describes one person's revelation of the grace of loving work this way,
"Andy has loved his work, the daily care of his place...the daily waiting for words...As it was human work it could not be free of trouble that from time to time would come to it, but it has had in it also a constant inherence of pleasure, even of joy. His work, he thinks, the love that was in it, the love that it was for, has given him a happy life."
May we love our work and find, even in the trouble that comes to it, the inherence of joy in it and life whole and holy, happy (already blessed) in Jesus.
Love you, faith family. God bless!