![]() In ten years you will be deeply disillusioned because you will find that as much as you are trying to work on important things, so much of what you do is minutiae. Or let’s say you are a lawyer, and you go into law because you have a vision for justice and a vision for a flourishing society ruled by equity and peace. ![]() But there really is a New Jerusalem, a heavenly city, which will come down to earth like a bride dressed for her husband (Revelation 21–22). You are likely to be discouraged because throughout your life you probably will not get more than a leaf or a branch done. ![]() Why? You are excited about cities, and you have a vision about how a real city ought to be. (The irony is that he produced something so many people consider a work of genius that it is one of the bestselling books in the history of the world.) What about you? Let’s say that you go into city planning as a young person. Tolkien had readied himself, through Christian truth, for very modest accomplishment in the eyes of this world. He was speaking of Christian ministry, but Tolkien’s story shows how this can ultimately be true of all work. “In the Lord, your labor is not in vain,” writes Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 58. That is what the Christian faith promises. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever. Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught. If this life is all there is, then everything will eventually burn up in the death of the sun and no one will even be around to remember anything that has ever happened. But that is beyond the control of any of us. (1) Ben Witherington, Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor (Eerdmans, 2011), 2.“Everyone wants to be successful rather than forgotten, and everyone wants to make a difference in life. Read more about the call to work in Genesis in the Theology of Work Bible Commentary: The Work of the Creation Mandate (Genesis 1:28, 2:15) Refresh my experience of work as your truth takes hold of me. Jesus, I ask for wisdom and revelation as I study what your word says about work. When, if ever, has work felt like something you were designed for? Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually.Įxcerpt from Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller. Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality it is not simply medicine but food for our soul. Yet we do not see work brought into our human story after the fall of Adam, as part of the resulting brokenness and curse it is part of the blessedness of the garden of God. The fact that God put work in paradise is startling to us because we so often think of work as a necessary evil or even punishment. ![]() It was part of God’s perfect design for human life, because we were made in God’s image, and part of his glory and happiness is that he works, as does the Son of God, who said, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17). One biblical scholar summed it up: “It is perfectly clear that God’s good plan always included human beings working, or more specifically, living in the constant cycle of work and rest.”(1) The book of Genesis leaves us with a striking truth-work was part of paradise.
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