This coming Monday, America celebrates Labor Day. And it should be a celebration for it recognizes an essential value that has raised this nation from meager beginnings to the most powerful on earth.
I’m thankful for parents, siblings, and mentors that taught me the importance of hard work. They instilled within me not only the toughness to endure long hours and hot days in hay fields and taxidermy shops, but also the satisfaction of a job well done.
In the Future Farmers of America, the plow is the Vice President’s emblem symbolizing labor and tillage of the soil. In each meeting’s opening ceremony, this officer reminds all members, that “Without labor, neither knowledge nor wisdom can accomplish much.”
God wired us to work. Although sweat and toil entered as a consequence of Adam’s disobedience, even before their sin God assigned he and his wife the task of keeping Eden’s Garden. He also created each of us with differing skills and unique abilities to do certain jobs well.
Kierkegaard once said, “At each man’s birth there comes into being an eternal vocation for him, expressly for him. To be true to himself in relation to this eternal vocation is the highest thing a man can practice.”
Sadly, according to one placement firm, only about 1% of its clients had ever seriously assessed their skills, gifts and abilities in relation to their employment. Is it any wonder that many become frustrated in their jobs and stressed out?
According to Max Lucado in Cure for the Common Life, problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than any other stressor including family problems or financial issues. At least one-fourth of all employees are unhappy at work and one-third say they hate their jobs.
While some of our workplace issues can be solved by matching occupations to our skillsets, others will persist because work is, well, work and not play. One strategy to help is to remember who we are really working for.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Paul gave some excellent advice to all workers in Colossians 3:23-24. He said, “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.”
This perspective helps us realize the importance of our labor and should motivate us to do our best, in spite of whether our earthly bosses appreciate our efforts or not. Christians actually aren’t working for him or her anyway. We’re working for our Big Boss.
The great artist Michelangelo gave extreme attention to detail which yielded some of the finest works in all history. When someone implied that he was wasting his time in the corners of the Sistine Chapel since no one would see them, the master replied, “God will.”
Lucado says, “God’s eyes fall on the work of our hands. Our Wednesdays matter to Him as much as our Sundays. He blurs the secular and sacred.” It is a huge blunder to not see our occupations, at which we spend most of our time, as something less than sacred.
We are tempted to believe that only pastors and fulltime Christian workers do fulltime Christian work. Every believer should be doing fulltime Christian work whether at the factory, the farm, or the home. Homemakers should remember that the meals they fix and the dishes they wash are for Jesus, while executives and their employees should envision their workstations as altars where they offer to God daily the best that they have.
Lucado remarks, “…our work matters as much as our worship. Indeed, work can be worship.” As we observe Labor Day this weekend, let’s give thanks to God for the jobs He has given us and let us ask for His help in performing them for His glory.
Labor Day Blessings, George