Stop and think about what would happen if everyone quit working right now! Civilized life stops, food vanishes from the shelves, fuels drys up at the pumps, streets and cities are no longer patrolled, fires burn themselves out, all communication and transportation services end, utilities go dead. Those who survive soon huddle around campfires, sleeping wherever, and clothed in raw animal hides.
The difference between a wilderness and a culture is work. Lutheran leader and businessman William Diehl said, “If lay people cannot find any spiritual meaning in their work, they are condemned to living a certain dual life, not connecting what they do on Sunday morning with what they do the rest of the week. They need to discover that the very actions of daily life are spiritual and enable people to touch God in the world, not away from it. Such a spirituality will say, “Your work is your prayer.”
Tim Keller put it this way. “God does not simply create, He also lives, cares for, and nurtures His creation. He feeds and protects all He has made. So how does He primarily do this? God’s loving care comes to us largely through the labor of others. Work is a major instrument of God’s providence, it’s how He sustains the world… so we need to place a high value on all human work done by all people and see it as a channel of God’s love for all His world.”
For a lot more on this subject Download “ Making Sense of Work – Connecting Sunday to Monday.”
