Your work matters to God

Its the same old routine. You pull yourself out of bed. Bathe. Clothe yourself. Bathe the kids. Clothe the kids. Warm up the car and drive to work, arriving not a minute too late. You start your day by turning on the light, eyeing the work that lies before you, and settling down into the same drudgery. It’s the same, day in and day out. The end is sustenance — the money needed to eat and live and make purchases. The means is the burden of work.

These days the word “labor” has a distinctively negative connotation. Pollster Lou Harris found a couple of years ago that most Americans are not working as hard as they did ten years ago. In fact, 78 percent said that people take less pride in their work. Our declining productivity scales reveal the sad truth that work has lost its favor.

This was not the case of our ancestors. Whether it was the new world of the colonies or the wild frontier of the West, work was the way things got done. If you wanted results, it usually required the blood and sweat and tears of many days or years of toil. The farmer worked the soil with crude tools only to have to start all over again with the next crop.

Thrift, industry, diligence and perseverance are what Americans have been known for. We need a clarion call to bring us back home again to what was once called the “work ethic.” This is not just a Protestant or Catholic or a Jewish issue. This is an issue for all of God’s creation — he gave us hands and feet and a mind to work. Writer Arthur Burns was intrigued by the drive of the early American settlers and he concluded that “”their work mattered to God.”

Please, share with a friend if you feel moved.
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