Work

Work was cre­ated as a way of giv­ing us some­thing to do while we are down here. It gives us a chance to imi­tate the Cre­ator by being cre­ative and pro­duc­tive. The Gar­den of Eden could have been made to be self-sufficient, but Adam and Eve were given one that needed tend­ing. We humans are at our best when we are being pro­duc­tive. It is when we have too much time on our hands that brings out our lesser selves.

Through­out my life, I have always over­loaded just slightly (and some­times abun­dantly) just to keep me focused. Most of my col­lege years were a com­bi­na­tion of full-time work and full-time school. That sounds masochis­tic, but it is just the ticket for test­ing your abil­i­ties, strength­en­ing your time man­age­ment skills, and sharp­en­ing your wit. Hav­ing too much to do teaches you how to rest inside of your soul while you are busy.

You have heard the say­ing, “If you want some­thing done, recruit a busy per­son.” Note how God called busy peo­ple to take on the most dif­fi­cult tasks. For some rea­son, he did not recruit among the leisure class or call the unchal­lenged to greater chal­lenges. Simon was very busy in his fish­ing busi­ness before he was called to be a dis­ci­ple, an apos­tle, and a mar­tyr. In the end, he accom­plished more than just hav­ing a boat load of fish.

The model for min­istry is not the forty-hour week. The same is true in a person’s call to the Faith. It is the impos­si­ble chal­lenged heaped on your already-too-busy-life. Have you ever noticed that the best adults were once stu­dents that were involved in a long list of activ­i­ties? Take note of this year’s grad­u­ates and see if the work and extra-curricular habits they have now do not fol­low them all through their adult lives.

I am not advo­cat­ing work-a-holism (the obses­sions con­nected to and about work). I am just not­ing that the hap­pi­est peo­ple in the world are usu­ally the most chal­lenged (some­times it is health issues plus eco­nomic sur­vival). If you wake up won­der­ing how you will get it all done, you will are blessed. You will find moments between and dur­ing tasks that are eter­nal in qual­ity — and no pas­sive indul­gence in the world is quite as rewarding.