The Joy of Work

“So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him.”

What is the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer? One set the temperature, and the other just reads it.

Another thought on work. If we are little more than beasts of burden, let us at least rejoice in what we have. The roof above your head, the food in your stomach, the clothes on your back, the shoes on your feet. As Pollyanna (or perhaps today, as Unikitty) as it sounds, think about what you do have, not what you do not have.

If you have gotten to choose what to eat today, you are doing better than a lot of people throughout the world. If you get your water from a tap, and it doesn’t put you on a sick bed, you should be very thankful. Did you take a Tylenol? Someone, somewhere, would give you a king’s ransom for one if they could.  

Beyond this though, you have work to do. Since the later part of the last decade, this is far from a given. If you have a place, a function, you have something to rejoice in.

You cannot see the future. Kevin DeYoung aptly said that “Worry is trying to live tomorrow before it happens.” So instead of trying to live in tomorrow, or perhaps in yesterday, live in today. Be where you are, and be joyful for however long you have. One day you will return to the dust from whence you came.

In the meantime, if you choose joy, you might just reset the temperature. 

Try it along with me today. 

Unjust Judges and Unrighteous Preachers

"Furthermore, I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness.

I said to myself, “God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man,” for a time for every matter and for every deed is there."

What can be said?

We live in a world where the places where we should feel most safe have become most suspect.

Confidence in the government is at an all-time low in our nation. We are more like Rome than ever in that the wheels of justice and administration seem to be greased by money as opposed to virtue. It’s like finding a statesmen in a politician stack. Few and far between is the lawmaker who lives within the law of God or man.

Even in houses of worship, it is hard to find one who is the same in private as they are in public. If Ezekiel’s vision were to come true today, would the angels still begin at the Temple, their slaughtering weapon in their hand? Mercy, Lord. Where we should find the greatest safety we do not, and some fear the harm that may befall them even in the house of God. Fearing they may be the fleece that is fleeced.  

We can identify with The Preacher. He is cries out like a prophet, “Where is just judgment? Where is true righteousness?”

God will judge the righteous and the wicked. It is a comfort for the righteous, a clarion call to the wicked. Hold fast, you righteous. Act fast, you wicked. We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and in that day, we will have only Christ to stand upon.

Hold out hope, for the hope that Solomon could not have known, that in due time Christ the Righteous Judge will come to hold account the quick and the dead. This is not a message of fear, but of hope. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.

Until then, let us be the change we long to see in the world.

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Two days after this blog was posted, this hit the news:

http://fox4kc.com/2014/06/24/former-it-director-of-warrensburg-school-district-charged-with-sex-crimes-against-girl/

Work

Start here: www.biblehub.com/nasb/ecclesiastes/3.htm

Work gets a bad rap. We often think of work as being a consequence of The Fall (Gen 3), and while there are consequences from the curse associated with work; there was work before the Fall, and it was “good”.

We spend much of lives complaining about work, avoiding work, and looking forward to one day we can stop working altogether. Indeed there will be a Heavenly rest for those in Christ; but it is not as if we will sleep for all eternity; there will be work to be done even in eternity. 

Our grandmothers were on to something when they admonished us about idle hands being the Devil’s workshop, because they absolutely are. If you are busy, particularly doing what you ought to be doing, it sure helps one to stay out of trouble. Yet so much of our effort is expended on not expending effort.

God created us to work, and to do his work.

I suspect that one of the root causes of the disaffection we have in modern life comes from the absence of real physical labor. There is something uniquely satisfying about seeing something that you built with your own hands, eating something that you planted with your own hands, and so forth. Modern work often has such delayed or abstract gratification. People were not made for cubicles.

So Solomon exhorts us to be joyful, to enjoy the fruit of our labors, recognize that that fruit is reward from God and ultimately recognize that all we have is from the hand of God.

What God does is permanent, but what man does is impermanent, so we can see how great God is. 

God is the one who determines whose work will be rewarded and how, in both the here and now and in the hereafter. He will judge us for all that we do. God is testing us, in part through our work.

You can certainly learn a great deal about someone from their work.