Take This Job and --- Keep It
There used to be a popular song entitled - "Take this job and shove it." But I like my job, and I want to keep it. The idea of work does present some interesting thoughts and questions. Why do we have to work? What is work all about? What should be my purpose in work? Why is work so hard? For many, the thought of work brings on attitudes of hardship, drudgery, and disappointment. For others, it brings excitement, challenge, fulfillment, and a reason to get up in the morning. Regardless of how we see work, God has a role in the marketplace and a lot to say about work.
When God created this great world of ours, His primary purpose in creating you and me was to have a loving relationship with each of us. But at the same time, He needed someone to take care of the world He had created. We were to - "tend the garden." Thus, our first responsibility was born. But there was another responsibility as well. In the second chapter of Genesis and verses 15-17, God places two responsibilities on man; He says we are to work and we are to listen to him. Together, they bring us the contentment, joy, and fulfillment in our life. We have a purpose, and we have someone we can rely on to be with us as we approached each day. To leave one of these out, would only bring frustration, hardship, and disappointment.
Consequently, the first marketplace was created. God and man would work together and as long as man listened to God, things would be great. Man, working with God along side of him, would provide all the needs and desires of mankind. Imagine for a moment, as the world grew there would be a need for houses, transportation, technology, and many other things to come. It would be a perfect world, a world with no limits on God's blessings. At this point, all work would be sacred because God would be a part of it, There would be no inferior products, no poor service, and no greed or dishonesty. It would be a time when man used the gifts God had given him for the glory of God. All work would be a pleasure and a blessing as long as we listened to God.
I remember my first job. I was fourteen years old and my dad had decided that I needed to go to work. He was a homebuilder and I think this was a time for him to get some cheap labor. My first summer job was sweeping out houses, and digging foundations with picks and shovels was my promotion the next summer. But by the third summer, I had moved up to the framing crew. I thought this was big stuff, I had my own hammer and nail apron. Digging foundations with picks and shovels, framing in those scorching 100 degree attics, and driving nails all day long was not easy, especially when some of my friends were swimming while I was swinging the hammer. I can still hear those words of my dad when I would try to take a short break - " drive the nail son."
As time passed and I grew in the marketplace, I found that somewhere along the line someone had not listened to God. Work was hard and people and products could not be trusted all the time. Yet, these summer jobs built in me a love for something I wanted to do the rest of my life. My veins began to run with dirt and sawdust. Homebuilding was to be my future.
I think everyone needs to find work that gives them a reason to get up in the morning; something in which we have a special love and talent. I have often encouraged my children, and now the grandchildren, to find some kind of work they love so much they would do it for nothing if they could. That love and desire, combined with a special gift and opportunity from God, gives us a confidence that we are once again walking with God in his garden "in the cool of the day". While He gives us this pleasure, we also give Him pleasure as we recognize it is all a part of Him. "A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too I see is from the hand of God, for without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment." Ecclesiastes 2: 24,25.
