Working God’s Field (2)

Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. Ecclesiastes 2.24

The importance of jobs
The secular worldview, and the materialist economy it promtes, puts a great deal of emphasis on work. More specifically, on jobs. Happy days are here again when jobs are plenty and unemployment is low.  

Public education and higher education are geared toward preparing students to find a job. Unless they find a job, they won’t be able to work. Being jobless will make them a drain on the economy and will strain the resources of secular systems in trying to figure out what to do with people who can’t or won’t find work.

Life under the sun is a journey of getting and spending, and having a job is crucial to finding one’s place in such a life. It’s not necessary to like one’s job, although liking one’s job makes life more bearable, since so much of one’s life is taken up on the job. For many people, a job is the means for realizing an enjoyable retirement, that as-close-to-heaven-on-earth period in which we no longer have to work, and can enjoy the good from our life of labor. Work is not a necessary evil, but many people play the lottery each week, hoping to hit the jackpot so they can get to retirement ahead of schedule.

Except for the gambling, none of this is necessarily evil. Indeed, with Solomon we could say that work and jobs are gifts from God, and should be received as such. That they are not, not even by many Christians, demonstrates the power of the secular worldview.

Part of understanding our times and knowing what to do, therefore, entails getting the Lord’s perspective on work and jobs, so that we approach our jobs not merely as jobs, but as arenas for working the Lord’s field for His glory.

A thing of beauty
A job is a fascinating thing. A job provides a way for a person to engage particular skills in specific tasks according to determined timetables and schedules, for the sake of producing goods or services useful to others. The dizzying array of jobs that makes up a sophisticated economy like that of the United States is a thing of beauty. All those people, skills, tasks, goods, and services, coordinated and collaborating in ways known and unknown, to create the highest standard of living the world has ever seen. Amazing!

These days, when many jobs are becoming iffy or ceasing to exist, Americans are very sensitive to the importance of having and keeping a job, no matter what. But if all we see in our job is a way of making a living, and perhaps finding a measure of personal satisfaction, we’ve missed the main point of how our job fits into the total scheme of the work we’ve been given to do. Jobs are important, and in ways more than we may at first recognize.

A job is a thing of beauty, especially when it is engaged under the heavens, rather than under the sun.

Gifts from God
Because where do those skills come from? And the resources to invest those skills in producing goods and services? And the wherewithal to pay for those skills thus applied? Where does the fluid and flow of the economy come from, but from the hand of God, who works even here to bring His goodness to light in land of the living?

Every job is a gift of God and a means whereby, through His steadfast love and faithfulness, He oversees the meeting of human needs and the satisfying of human wants. This is not to say that every job we might imagine should be regarded as sacred and as coming from God. God does not condone the work that attends such immoral professions as prostitute, hit-man, drug-pusher, purveyor of pornography, and a host of others.

But legitimate jobs that bring good to others and provide for the needs of our neighbors, are given by the hand of God. Every good and perfect gift comes down to us from God, including our jobs (Jms. 1.17). All the skills to work our jobs are from Him (1 Cor. 4.7). All the resources we need for working are by His providential provision (Ps. 24.1). All legitimate work reflects the good works of God, and contributes to the good of society.

All this is a gift from God; therefore, we should receive our work as such, and give thanks and praise to God as we take up our jobs each day, that we might fulfill a small but significant role in the divine economy, and not merely in the materialist economy of our secular age. When we understand our work this way, as a gift from God, it inspires us to do our work – no matter how menial or sophisticated – with the highest degree of goodness and excellence, as unto the Lord, and not merely for men (Col. 3.23, 24). Seeing work as a gift from God makes us care about co-workers and those who will benefit from our work, and fills us with a sense of gratitude and satisfaction at a job well done.

All legitimate work is a gift, including our jobs, and when we receive work as such, and work it according to the intentions of the Giver, we work with God in the field of the world, and bring Him glory in our jobs, and in all our work.

For reflection
1.  Why are work and jobs so important to our secular, materialist age? Are there any other reasons why these might be important, other than getting-and-spending?

2.  How would you explain the idea that all legitimate work, and the jobs in which we do that work, are gifts from God?

3.  What difference should it make that we see our job as a gift from God that reflects His work in the world?

Next steps – Conversation: Talk with some Christian friends about their jobs. Do they see their jobs as gifts from God?

T. M. Moore

For a more developed view of the Kingdom, and of the Gospel of the Kingdom, order a copy of our book The Kingdom Turn (click here) or The Gospel of the Kingdom (click here). You can download a free PDF of Vocational Disciplines, a complement to this week’s study (click here).

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.