A Lot About Work
As I regularly share a Little Bit About Work with you, periodically I would like to share A LOT. If we stop and really reflect, we will see that God has given us all A LOT. Productive work means increasing or making more of our time, our effort, our purpose, our goals, our service, our prayer, our spiritual life, our relationships, our very path in life, just to name a few. If we can’t make more of anything, why work?
The desire to work is foundational to our identity. There is a process that helps us to better understand our work. It involves preparing for, learning about, experiencing accomplishment, passion, joy, purpose, fulfillment in WORK that is an extension of the work that God has begun in the world and in us. AND we must understand that our work is a great source of joy for God.
One scriptural image for this is the Parable of the Talents from the Gospel of Matthew in which a Master gives three servants sums of money called talents. One receives five, another receives three and a third receives one. The third servant is afraid; his fear cripples him and he buries the money and gives it back to the master. The other two are industrious and they double what was given to them. They then give the multiplied wealth back to the master. This causes the master to be joyful and leads to an invitation for those two to share that joy (Matthew 25:14-30). The parable is foundational in leading us to connect our faith and our work with the joy of our Master—God.
I believe that the primary way that we make more of what God has given us is through our WORK. And my definition of work is not confined to a job, career or paycheck. Work can mean anything we are committed to or put effort towards. In a real way, it can mean any endeavor requiring accomplishing tasks. Work can be creative and fun. It can be laborious and difficult; it can be mindless and somewhat automatic as well.
My regular tidbits here in my article will give some background to work, define it, consider how it has formed us, how we get greater clarity regarding our talent, urge us to work like, with and for God, as well as to see that we are somehow all engaged by meaningful work. We will consider how spiritual, church, scriptural and popular cultural concepts aid us in learning about work and how other concepts such as passion, purpose and service tie into our work. We will investigate work in relationships and athletics, in transitions that used to be called retirement but now mean, more often than not, the next chapter.
Like anything else, I believe that we must spend some time, and sometimes A LOT of time, reflecting and praying about our work—always seeking a deeper spiritual foundation answering the question, “Why do I work?”
I propose another question based on the Parable of the Talents. What does it mean to make MORE of your talent, your effort, your creativity, your productivity—in short—your work?
I believe that making more of your talent means:
• Acknowledging that…
God is the source of work and our talent.
God has made each of us uniquely, with different gifts, skills and talent sets.
• Identifying those talents is critical and plays out by…
Listening
Praying
Learning
Observing (noticing our own work experience and that of others)
• Sharing
Expressing
Giving
Using (doing something with those talents in a meaningful way to make the world a better place)
Acting
Serving
The process can be simplified into
ACKNOWLEGING
IDENTIFYING
and SHARING.
More to come.