The sanctity of work

If you are a Christian who attends a Bible-teaching, Christ-exalting church, have you ever heard a message that includes an annecdote about a young man or woman who is particularly gifted and studying to become a brain surgeon but then "God gets ahold of their life," they chuck all their studies, and soon they turn their full attention to pastoring or the mission field? When you hear such a tale told, the tone is usually giddy. What a great thing this person has done!

Should a believer be concerned about such a radical shift?

We would expect an eye-roll from the world for usually fiscal reasons. Dude, think of all the money you've wasted. Think of all the money you won't be making. To which the career-shifter will smile thinking about the treasures that they are storing up in heaven (Matthew 6:19-21). But even a Christian might raise a justifiably skeptical eyebrow at such a move?

Before I go any further, a few thoughts. Many need God to get ahold of their lives because they are careening down the causeway of self toward certain catastrophe. God often alters the direction someone is going in their life and even their vocation (Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, and Paul to name a vivid few), but as much as God calls men to leave their nets to follow him, much, much more God calls men to stay at their nets and follow him.


Jarome Iginla, Captain - Calgary Flames
Christ follower



Here is my concern. The call of many well-intentioned biblical teachers to "chuck it all for kingdom work" draws a line that the Bible does not, a line of superiority between secular vocation (mechanic, parent, and plumber) and kingdom vocation (generally pastors and missionaries), between secular service (changing oil, changing diapers, and changing toilet rings) and kingdom service (praying, passing out tracts, and potlucks). Vocational work and church-building work are both work that God has given man to do.

Paul admonishes the Corinthians at the end of the section on Spiritual Gifts and love to "be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58). Contextually, this speaks to their wide and varied ministries in the church. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul emphasizes the sanctity of all work when he says,

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." (3:23-24)

Now, you cannot be a hooker unto the Lord. Drug dealing for the glory of God doesn't fly. Willful violation of what God has revealed as good and right will never earn his favor.

On the other hand, God is pleased by a well designed insurance building at the hand of a man who does so for the glory of God. God is pleased by the hockey player who hits the weights, skates lines, and shoots thousands of pucks to hone his skills to be the best possible team captain he can be if he does so as serving his true King. God delights in the mom who wipes noses, bandages knees, washes and folds laundry, prepares menus, and...and...and...with joy knowing that her labor that God has assigned her is never in vain.

Please, saint, don't be guilted because you are not in the jungles of Africa (there are men there who ought not be). Don't rue being a school teacher or a home school teacher or a school janitor or a home contractor. Don't be coerced into giving up what has been your passion (very likely God-given) for something else about which you are not white hot...unless God is making this thing very plain to you. Then pursue with leonine veracity.

Whatever you do, whether trying to build a church on the arid coast of Chile or build a restaurant in downtown Chattanooga, labor as unto the Lord and that labor will not be in vain.

(I heard a great sermon on the sancity of work this past weekend by a local pastor.  If you have the time, you'll find it here. If you only have a few minutes, pick it up at about the 14:30 mark and listen for fifteen minutes. It's worth your time.)

Politically incorrect: Motherhood & living together

Among my daily reads, I came across two articles, both from National Review, that fly in the face of post-modernism, an ethic that says, "Anyway is a good way as long as it's your way."

The first deals with working moms.  It's sure to ignite a firestorm.  You'll find it here.

The second peaks beneath the covers of cohabitation (sorry), and the damage unmarried parents inflicts upon the children.  More fuel for the flames.  Read it here.

Bottom line to both:  Doing it 'my way' ends in misery.

I'll never forget the great advice my friend Brian Rath once gave me.  I was stewing in the misery of a job failure when he told me, "If we could orchestrate our lives exactly as we wanted them to be, we would be the most miserable people." The heart of the matter? God knows what's best. He has a plan. We must trust and obey.

Will we ever get it?

Passing 10,000 feet

The morning sky hung leadened and somber over our heads but the bracing fall breeze helped shake the remaining cobwebs of the five a.m. wakeup as we got our jets ready for engine start. We did not mind launching into the clouds. The weather guessers said they would not be that thick and that the working areas above should be in the clear.

Flying in close proximity to another aircraft might seem certifiable but it’s really not that bad. Imagine if you had a parking lot of extraordinary size where you get in your car and I get in mine. All you have to do is keep yourself positioned about a lane’s width from my back tire while I drive around. As I steer away from you, the distance between us opens and you steer toward me to return that gap to a lane’s width. If I steer toward you the distance begins to close and you steer away from me to open it back up. If I accelerate, you fall aft and recognizing it, you accelerate to return yourself to the correct position. You don’t have to worry about trees because you trust me completely not to run us into one. That’s the job of the flight lead. He hits no trees and takes the formation where it needs to go. The wingman? His job is to just “be there.”

The runway lights still twinkled along the runway edges because the dawn wrestled with the overcast to brighten the earth. Even with earplugs, even with padded helmets, the engines roar as they're coaxed from idle to maximum power. It still makes me giggle like a little kid.

The takeoff was uneventful and we soon approached the clouded canopy. Imagine being on a lift heading for the ceiling. That's the sensation.

You never know what you’ll get upon cloud entry. Sometimes you can see your flight lead just as well as you could out of the cloud; you just can no longer visually discern up and down. You trust your lead and hang on to his bumper. Sometimes the clouds are so thick you can no longer see the fuselage or body of his plane but can only make out the wing tip. That’s white-knuckling. Sometimes there's turbulence. Sometimes it's as smooth as a lake on a summer morning. These were average clouds, and my student in the front seat did a fine job hanging onto his lead’s wing.

The brightening clouds indicated we were nearing their tops. And then we broke out.

The beauty of the skyscape caught my breath. We emerged in a clouded valley with towering cliffs of billowy white on either side and a sky overhead so blue as to startle the eyes. The dark blue hues faded higher up the cottoned hillsides until at their crest the orange of the sunrise warmed the tops of the western ridge of piled cumulus.

Up we rose out of the valley into the blazing purity of the morning sun. The flight lead signaled to loosen the formation and so my student slid out to a couple hundred feet. The brightness of the sun cast a crystalline halo around the edges of lead’s jet and around the clouds that piled still higher to our east. My kingdom for a movie camera.

Cliffs and crags, mythical mountains and gentle hills, seemingly tangible but nothing more than vapor, all painted with colors no palette on the earth far below has equaled. It was a panorama I’d seen many times before, but as my final days in this violator of gravity drew near, it struck me how blessed I have been to see such things for so very many years. Vaulting out of that valley of wonder, my heart ached that no matter how carefully I crafted my words, I could not replicate what I had seen to my family.

I don’t know if my student in the front seat recognized what he’d just flown past. Perhaps he was maxed-out trying to keep his plane where his flight lead wanted him to be. Perhaps his mind was too focused on the mission he had yet to complete.

Perhaps, though, in twenty years, as he approached his final sortie, God would slow things down enough for him on some pristine morning, slow it down enough to savor the wonder of dancing through the clouds.