Motions or Meaning?

There are two approaches to your work: 1. By try­ing to find mean­ing in it. 2. By giv­ing mean­ing to it. The first is often frus­trat­ing. The sec­ond takes a lot of imag­i­na­tion. A num­ber of peo­ple are in the midst of job changes right now. For some, it is the loss of a secure posi­tion. For oth­ers, it is the oppor­tu­nity to go find an adven­ture. Either way, the spirit looks for a chance to find some­thing bet­ter than what one once had.

A person’s church life runs along the same lines. Some go through the motions, oth­ers find mean­ing. You can gen­er­ally tell it on the looks of their faces when you see them at the restau­rant or the gro­cery store after church. For some, going to church has all of the excite­ment of pay­ing an insur­ance bill, for oth­ers it is a chance to play, pon­der, or per­ceive in an entirely new way.

I have worked at a lot of dif­fer­ent things in my life­time. It has been eas­ier to find mean­ing in some jobs more than oth­ers. Ulti­mately, mean­ing is given to a job more than it is derived from it. I am blessed by a call­ing that requires a great deal of read­ing, coun­sel­ing, and peo­ple con­tact. When I am burned out, I just go through the motions. When I am at my best, it is the most mean­ing­ful way of liv­ing that I can ever imag­ine. The key to it is in the word “imagine” — for that is ulti­mately the key to all jobs.

There have been some tedious jobs in my life. Those are best han­dled with humor. A mind­less task can be a real bless­ing. It frees the mind for bet­ter things. God made us work­ers and co-creators. For me it is more inspir­ing to peruse the arts than mow the lawn. How­ever, when my mind is tired, the lawn­mower looks like a pretty good alter­na­tive.

If you can cre­ate a sense of play in your work, you will do very well. Willpower alone is too drain­ing. Play-power is inex­haustible. Creation-power tops the list of mean­ing­ful dri­ves. Life reduced to merely pay­ing the bills is its own hell. We can­not live on that kind of “bread alone” (as many failed economies have dis­cov­ered). If your job ends today, it may well be the best thing that ever hap­pened to you.