If you were to stop someone on the street to ask how they like their job, chances are nine times out of ten, they’d tell you it’s “not bad” or that it “helps pay the bills.” Most people are pretty ambivalent toward work, simply viewing it as a means to buy more free time and do something they’re actually interested in.
Work Was Designed to Be Good
God never intended for us to feel detached from our work, but many Christians feel just as disenchanted as non Christians when it comes to their jobs. A 2013 study by the Barna Group reveals that only a third of Christians surveyed reported that they felt called to the work they do.
In addition, many of us consider ministry and missions to be the only legitimate work that truly “serves God,” and we view getting involved at church as the best way to live out our faith. In addition, we often think of Kingdom-building as the effort to share the gospel with our local and global neighbors, and that is important–but it’s not the only thing.
We have to remember that the call to work predates sin; this is emphasized in Genesis 2:15, which reads, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Work was designed as good–as an original and essential part of God’s plan, before the fall and before there was even a need for evangelism. When pastors and church workers came along much later, what was their main purpose? To help others live out their faith in all spheres of life–including work, which represents a significant portion of our waking hours.
A New Perspective on Kingdom-Building
We’re told to reflect Christ-likeness in “whatever we do” (Colossians 3:17). Kingdom-building isn’t just about evangelism; it’s about extending God’s kingdom on earth through the actions we make, the businesses we build, and the work we do every single day. We’re called to create culture across art and entertainment, economics and business, science and innovation. All of these things should hold godly values and reflect God’s nature and the world as he intended it: good.
But Why Do Those Things Matter? Doesn’t Earth Have an Expiration Date Anyway?
Not really. (Read more about the new earth and arguments against the present earth’s annihilation here and here.)
Maybe you’re a lawyer working for justice, but injustice continues. Maybe you’re a doctor working to keep people in good health, but people pass away. Maybe you manage a grocery store, working to give people access to food, but not everyone can get access to food and people go hungry.
We can’t create perfect, permanent solutions, but that doesn’t mean that work holds no value; on the contrary, God sees our work as very valuable and as an opportunity to showcase redemption. The Bible isn’t an extraction story of God’s faithful being rescued from a fallen earth; it’s a restoration story of something that was created as good being returned to its intended state.
Every good work is an act of that restoration, even if it isn’t perfect. God sees the work we do as an essential part of the story with lasting impact into eternity.
You May Only Paint a Leaf in Your Lifetime; But That Leaf is Attached to a Beautiful Tree
J. R. R. Tolkien, now considered one of the greatest writers of all time, was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to complete the Lord of the Rings and that it would all come to nothing. But it was through his writers group, The Inklings, that contemporaries such as CS Lewis provided encouragement and convinced him otherwise. He illustrates this in the autobiographical short story, Leaf by Niggle.
Niggle agonized over his painting of a tree; it was to be his masterpiece. While he imagined beautiful leaves, sprawling branches, a gorgeous trunk, and a surrounding landscape, all he managed to paint in his life were a few leaves, and even those weren’t as spectacular as he imagined them. Before he managed to finish the piece, he caught a cold and died in disappointment.
But as Niggle passed through death and caught the train to some heavenly place, there was his tree:
Before him stood the Tree, his Tree, finished. If you could say that of a Tree that was alive, its leaves opening, its branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt or guessed, and had so often failed to catch. . . All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made them; and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded, if only he had had time.
In Every Good Endeavor, Timothy Keller shares this commentary on the story of Niggle:
Once or twice in your life you may feel like you have finally “gotten a leaf out.” Whatever your work, you need to know this: There really is a tree. Whatever you are seeking in your work—the city of justice and peace, the world of brilliance and beauty, the story, the order, the healing—it is there. There is a God, there is a future healed world that he will bring about, and your work is showing it (in part) to others. Your work will be only partially successful, on your best days, in bringing that world about. But inevitably the whole tree that you seek—the beauty, harmony, justice, comfort, joy, and community—will come to fruition. If you know all this, you won’t be despondent because you can get only a leaf or two out in this life. You will work with satisfaction and joy.
Your Work Can Be a Window, Offering Others a Glimpse of the World as God Intended It When He Created it and How it Will Be in Eternity
Work is a partnership with God towards restoring the world to its original goodness. God not only wants to keep and use our good work and creations in eternity; he will redeem them into perfection beyond how we could have accomplished them.
As Keller puts it, there really is a tree. When we look at our work, we might just see it as a leaf and wonder if it really matters, but it is connected to a much greater purpose. It’s understandable to question whether work is really meaningful or accomplishes anything, but everything you do has an opportunity to be a window and an invitation to a redeemed world, offering others a view of things as God intended them to be.
Isn’t that work worth just as much as the work of a pastor or missionary? Shouldn’t that make us want to approach our work differently, with joy and excitement?
This article is part of an ongoing series exploring what it means to live out the Christian faith in all areas of life: family, media, church, art & entertainment, education, government, commerce & technology.
©2021 Cities Project Global
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