The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. [Genesis 2:15 (ESV)]
Today is Labor Day—the unofficial last day of summer. On a day originally intended to celebrate the accomplishments of workers, it’s somewhat ironic that most of us are doing as little work as possible. Nevertheless, whether it’s just making the bed, grilling the burgers, washing the car, or being called in for an emergency surgery, we’ll all do some work today. We appreciate the day off but we’d much prefer a full-blown vacation—with no chores, deadlines, schedules, or business calls, texts, and emails. On the ideal vacation, all we have to do is relax and enjoy ourselves.
Everyday life, however, requires work of some kind. Some days that work might be stimulating but, other days, it can downright boring. While our labor can be enjoyable, it also can be grueling or hectic. Most of our tasks aren’t what we’d describe as fun. Some are physically demanding, others are tedious, and some are just plain gross! The list of tasks seems never-ending and much of the what we did yesterday, we’ll do again today, and probably tomorrow, as well! Nevertheless, work is a gift from God and, quite likely, the gift we least value.
Surveys show that about 60% of our waking hours are spent working in some way or another. The American Time Use Survey estimates that, out of their 16.2 waking hours, the average employed person spends 8.8 hours working at their job, 1.8 hours on household activities, and 1.2 hours caring for others. No matter how much we love our family, doing the laundry, pulling weeds, grocery shopping, changing diapers, and helping the kids with homework is work. With so much of our life spent in labor, God wants us to enjoy our work and, thankfully, he’s given us the ability to do so.
God worked for six days creating the universe, Jesus accomplished the work God gave him [John 17:4], and the Holy Spirit is working in us right now. Because God is inherently good, anything He does is good, so we know work can’t be bad or evil. It’s simply a fact of life. God didn’t put Adam in the garden to sit in a lounge chair and drink margaritas. He gave him a garden to tend and watch over. Work was a gift not a curse but, because of our sin, God’s curse affected our work! It was only after the fall that work became toil, presented difficulties, and was prone to failure and unintended consequences. Work became more important in our lives simply because it took more labor to yield the desired results!
God wants us to enjoy all aspects of life, not just holidays like Labor Day or those two weeks in the sun while on vacation. Holidays and vacations are just the icing on the cake; He wants us to delight in the cake as well. When we work to the best of our ability with an uncomplaining (and appreciative) heart, work becomes a privilege and a way to honor our Heavenly Father.
Lord, we thank you for the gift of labor. Forgive any grumbling, shoddy workmanship, or lackluster effort on our part. Renew us with your Spirit. Fill us with enthusiasm, competence, and fortitude as we work so that the fruit of our labor brings honor to you and joy and self-respect to us.
Work is a blessing. God has so arranged the world that work is necessary, and He gives us hands and strength to do it. The enjoyment of leisure would be nothing if we had only leisure. It is the joy of work well done that enables us to enjoy rest, just as it is the experiences of hunger and thirst that make food and drink such pleasures. [Elisabeth Elliot]
“I’m so busy!” If there’s even a remote possibility that we might be asked to do something we’d rather avoid, we can cut off the request at the pass by starting the conversation with those words. It’s the perfect out. On the other hand, when said to us, we can’t argue with it.
Like his cousin Jesus, John’s impending birth was announced by the angel Gabriel, it took God’s intervention to take place, and his name and calling were determined before he was conceived. The angel Gabriel told Zechariah that, “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” John was “to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” When John was circumcised, Zechariah prophesied that John would “go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.”
Occasionally, I’ll spot a partially open moonflower (Ipomoea alba) during an early morning walk at the park. While the Moonflower’s cousin the Morning Glory opens wide to welcome the sunlight, the Moonflower prefers darkness. It’s only when the sun sets that it opens to a large trumpet-shaped bloom. Rather than competing during the day with brightly colored flowers for pollinators like bees and butterflies, Moonflowers enjoy pollinators like bats and moths at night. As the morning sun rises, the Moonflower again rejects the light and rolls up into itself.
When Moravian missionaries first arrived in the Arctic, they found no single word in the Inuktitut language for forgiveness. That doesn’t mean the Inuit people didn’t let go of past wrongs, just that they didn’t have a single world for doing so. Since forgiveness is an essential concept in Christianity, the missionaries wanted a single word that captured the kind of forgiveness found in Psalm 103. Using Inuktitut words, they came up issumagijoujungnainermik meaning “not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore.” This 24-letter multi-syllable word beautifully describes the God who will “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” [Micah 7:19], who vows to “forgive their iniquity, and…remember their sin no more,” [Jeremiah 31:34], and who promises to blot out our transgressions and not remember our sins.[Isaiah 43:25]
Earlier this week, I wrote about my nephew Johnny’s baptism in my mother’s hospital room. Because she was at death’s door, my brother took emergency leave and he and I served as the baby’s sponsors in Baptism (or Godparents).
Devotions of the Heart 