What Work Doesn't Do

Last week I started to post a series on work, then got distracted by the State Fair. I want to pick that back up again because the thoughts keep rolling around in my head, and that's what this blog thing is for!

Work: to co-operate with God in using our gifts and abilities to tend to the world he has given us in order to provide for our own needs, bless those around us, and bring forth beauty and life to the glory of God the Creator.

Work can only bless us under the under the umbrella and in its proper place of this co-operative relationship with God in order to point back to the power and goodness of him.

And then of course, sin enters the picture. Sin is broken relationship, first with God, then with one another, and of course with the rest of the created order. So instead of work being a joyful derivative good, a joyful good that we experience under the umbrella of a bigger and better good of a relationship with God, all of the sudden we’ve got thorns and toil and sweat and ultimately death.

Our relationship with work is way more complicated because our relationship with God is broken and as a consequence all of our relationships are messed up, including how we relate to the tasks that we’ve been given to do.

And so we’re confused. We don’t understand that work is good but it’s a derivative good.

And what happens with our broken relationship with work is that for many of us, myself included here, work becomes a place where we find our identity. It becomes our place where we try to find life. I gave you a definition of what work IS supposed to be earlier, here’s what work or your GPA or your major or your future career is NOT intended to do.

Your work/GPA/major/career is NOT intended to:

give you ultimate life

give you meaning

give you purpose

give you your identity

become your name

be the thing that defines you

be the thing that validates your existence or makes you a worthwhile human being.

But our world doesn’t know any better, and many of us get so wrapped up in our work or GPA’s or resumes or achievement . And so we become obsessed with doing as the thing that validates us, makes us important or significant in the world.

And here at UNC, we’ve even invented our own name for all of this: The Carolina way

Basically “the Carolina way” is a way of nicely saying that your significance as a human being is primarily wrapped up in how much you do: “The Carolina Way” runs on and is fueled by anxiety and grasping and ambition and fear, but the Scriptures say that life lived in step with God is fueled by faith, hope, and love.

Because here’s the deal: ultimately you cannot serve both Jesus and the Carolina Way.If you refuse to take up your cross and follow Jesus into both faithful work and faithful rest, the Carolina Way will gladly take your life and give you nothing in exchange and to draw from a warning from Jesus: you just might gain the whole world and forfeit your soul.