EXTRA: "Theology of Work: How and Why Our Work Matters to God"
My new (and first!) article for Logos
As you know, dear readers, my next book is on work, calling, and vocation. You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the Good, True, and Beautiful releases August 5 (it seems so far away!) and is available for pre-order wherever you buy books.
In the meantime, here’s a taste of my first essay at Logos—one of the best resources out there for the Bible, Bible commentary, theology, and church history out there—which is on this very topic:
At its simplest, a theology of work is our understanding of how and why our work matters to God. A theology of work undergirds the choices we make about what kind of work we do, why we do it, and how we do it. All of these things, of course, matter to God.
They matter in ways that go far beyond which job we should take, what career we should pursue, or whether we think our salary indicates God’s blessings on our lives. It involves more than just what God doesn’t want us to do: He doesn’t want us to be lazy, he doesn’t want us to cheat our employer or customers, he doesn’t want us to do work that is immoral or illegal. Of course, these things are true.
But a robust theology of work offers so much more. It offers freedom to the believer—freedom to discover and use our gifts and talents, freedom to seek ways to serve our neighbors and glorify God through our work, and even freedom to be content when work is hard or unfulfilling and to rest in the assurance that God’s perfect economy uses it all. And when we consider what, why, and how God places work in our lives, we can better pursue the particular callings he invites us to in our particular circumstances.
Read the rest of my essay here.
The hardest thing is to have found one's work, and yet not be able to do it. That is a position I have found myself in more than once, including the present. I was born into a family of hard workers and I expected to work hard, but health and other circumstances keep pausing or slowing the work I chose. I often wonder if I am doing something wrong, but everytime I ask that question, the only answer I can come up with is that the Lord isn't asking me to work as hard as I thought he would.
I read the whole article—wow, excellent. :-)