In the United States the first Monday in September is Labor Day, a day to celebrate the contributions of laborers to our life. The day was once the end of school vacations and the beginning of the school year; today, most American schools begin classes in mid-August.
Genesis 2:15
When John Kennedy was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination he traveled to West Virginia where he addressed a group of miners.
While waiting to be introduced, he stood beside one of the sooty miners.
The miner asked, “Is it true what they tell me that your father is one of the richest men in America?”
Kennedy answered, “Well, yes, that’s true.”
The miner then asked, “Is it true you’ve never lacked for anything in your life?”
Again, Kennedy answered, “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
Once again the miner asked, “Is it true you’ve never in your entire life had to do a day’s hard work with your hands?”
Not sure where the questioning was heading, Kennedy said, “Yes, that’s true.”
Then the miner said, “Let me tell you something, Mac, you haven’t missed a thing.”
Tomorrow is Labor Day, the day when we try to say something positive about work. The Creation story contains the beginnings of many of our human institutions. God gave Adam responsibility over the Garden, so human industry and work began. Work allows us to demonstrate creativity and ingenuity. Even in the Garden, work was designed to allow us to contribute to the beauty and character of our world, to make paradise a better place. Our work is a gift of God.
But remember the miner’s words to Kennedy. Work seems a strange gift, you might say, especially after an exhausting day trying to beat a deadline or racing to catch up to where you should have been yesterday.
This negative side of the work experience is not God’s doing, we brought it on ourselves. Only after the Rebellion, only after Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command did work become irksome and tedious. The curse placed upon Adam because of his disobedience became the experience of all humankind. From that time on work had the potential of bringing either satisfaction in seeing the product of our efforts or frustration in seeing our efforts thwarted by something beyond our control. Sadly, the curse upon our work touches things more significant than our careers.
God not only gave us the gift of work; God gave us the gift of the family. God declared that it was not good for the man to be alone, reminding us that we are intended to be social creatures. So, he created the woman. This led to the beginning of marriage and the family. Looking back on that momentous event, Moses tells his readers, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
It’s also clear that the man and the woman were intended to have a relationship with God. As rich as their relationship with each other might have been, their lives would be incomplete without God.
Now, had God simply intended to create a worker, none of the rest of this activity would have been necessary. In fact, Adam and Eve wouldn’t have been necessary. God could have simply taken one of the apes, taught it to do the repetitious tasks of pulling weeds and watering plants, and that would have been that.
God created humankind in his own image. He intended this crown of his creation to be more than a mere drudge. While He wanted our work to reflect his own creativity, He intended us to have life beyond our work. Fail to keep that in mind and we may fall prey to “workaholism.”
Workaholism is a distortion of God’s intention. Workaholics should not be praised or held up as examples of what’s right with this country.
One year, while I was in Texas, I taught a graduate course in New Testament for Wayland Baptist University. Three young pastors from another denomination were in that class. One evening they began talking about another pastor in their denomination, one who served one of their largest and most influential congregations in the area. With great awe they talked about his devotion to his job. They said he never took a day off and that he averaged twelve to fourteen hours a day in the office.
They were actually shocked when I told them I thought that behavior was irresponsible.
Sometimes our jobs force us to miss family outings or other activities, just as our jobs sometimes force us to miss church activities. But when that becomes the rule rather than the exception, warning flags ought to go up.
The workaholic needs help. Sometimes the roots of the problem may run deep, maybe all the way back to childhood. Frank Minirth explains, “Inner ‘voices’ or convictions are what keep workaholics going. They tell workaholics, who are usually the oldest children of their sex in the family, that they need to do something to be worthwhile. Those voices or convictions do not let him or her rest in just being someone. ‘Doing’ is the key to being worthwhile.”
This attitude is often rooted in what the workaholic heard from parents. The situation is made worse by fear and by worry about the general economic condition of the society or of losing their job.
True workaholics probably need help from counseling to deal with their situation.
Workaholism isn’t the only reason we sometimes get our lives out of balance. The problem may be a sign that something is wrong at home. If it’s easier to be with colleagues than family, easier to deal with crises at the office than the raging hormones of your teenagers, you may need to step back and examine what’s going on in your life.
Workaholism may prompt us to give our relationship with God our second best. We find it easier to slip into the office on Sunday, just to get a jump on Monday’s work, rather than enjoy the fellowship of other believers and possibly find nourishment for our souls. At the same time, we set an example for our children and neighbors that says building our wealth is more important than building our souls.
Jesus made a powerful statement about priorities: “…how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?” Jesus’ words refer to the danger of neglecting our spiritual condition while pursuing material wealth but he implicitly calls us to apply this principle to other things we value, like our families or our health.
Prayer and the counsel of other believers can help us get balance back into our lives.
Workaholism can cause us to neglect our other work—the work all we Christians share. Whatever occupation we may list on our tax forms, we all share the work of witness. William Barclay said, “The Christian is called upon to be the partner of God in the work of the conversion of men.”
Jesus set the pattern for us. He told his disciples, “While it is daytime, we must continue doing the work of the One who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”
He saw its urgency, so should we.
We all know how being indifferent to our daily work can harm our witness. So can workaholism. It says to the watching world.
- I get my sense of identity from my work, not my relationship with God.
- I get my sense of security from my earnings, not my faith.
- I get my peace from being indispensable to the company, not from the God who cares for me.
- I get my joy from what I do, not from those who love me.
What we do at work can help or hurt our witness. But our witness is also helped or hurt by what our work does to us.
Conclusion:
Usually, we observe Labor Day by talking about the kind of work that produces a salary, the work we do when we punch a time-clock. So, when we speak of “workaholics” we think of people who have a skewed perspective on their daily work.
But I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention those we might call “spiritual workaholics.” The church is full of men and women who believe their worth before God depends on how much they do for the Kingdom. Though they might be able to define “grace” so precisely they would get an “A” on a seminary theology test, they really don’t live by grace. They live as if God’s favor depended upon what they do. So, they take every job that’s offered in the church. They expect their families to just understand that the mission trip where they will eat, sleep, and work with dozens of strangers will have to substitute for a family vacation.
Please understand: I’m not condemning those who may hold multiple jobs in the church or who may participate in a mission trip. I am questioning the attitude of those who are compelled to do such things because they believe God’s favor rests on their ending each day with a kind of holy exhaustion. We need to pray with and for such people. And we need to help them toward a new vision of grace, a vision that will help them find real joy and effectiveness in whatever they chose to do for the church.
Let me make one more point: Yes, our work is important, whether it is the work we do for our salaries or the work we do to advance God’s Kingdom; but more important than our work is a life marked by balance.
God cares about all our work. Let’s look to him to help us do all our work well. And we can do it well only when we find that balance.
