Notes To Allan: Glory To God! Too Much Like Hard Work?

1 Corinthians 10:31

Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

This post is by my friend and GUEST BLOGGER: Jonathan Stark, Senior Pastor of Wodonga Baptist Church.

Surely Paul didn’t have work in mind when he said that did he?

At 15 years old I applied for a job at a furniture factory. It was a job for over the holidays and my motive was singular – money. I rode my bike in the early morning cold and, over the next two months, I earned every cent I received, and for the amount of work I did I was grossly underpaid! I can remember getting yelled at by my foreman “This is not a convent kid, get to work!” I felt constantly pressured and intimidated, I longed for the knock off bell to ring and couldn’t wait to get home, and a day before the big free Christmas party they sacked all the school aged employees! At that time I remember thinking, “If this is what work is like, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to endure it FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!”

To me a life of hard work was almost unbearable! I wasn’t sure whether the pay was worth all the pain. I would have agreed back then with Oscar Wilde who said, “Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.” What comes into your mind when I say the word – WORK? Probably not bringing God glory.

But Paul did say, “whatever you do,” and work, being something that takes up about a third of our time and often two thirds of our waking hours, is certainly part of Paul’s ‘whatever’. So how can we bring glory to God in our work? There are so many ways but surprisingly, working diligently is one of the main ways to glorify God.

5 ways to glorify God in our work by working diligently.

Work with all your heart Paul writes to slaves and says “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Col 3:23). If slaves were urged to give their all for God’s glory, how much more should we! He urged Timothy to work in such a way that he could stand before God as one approved, a worker who would not need to be ashamed (2 Tim 2:15). This brings glory to God when we work in a way that pleases him.
Learn from the ants. Wise old Solomon in Proverbs 6:6-8 asks us to get out to our local national park, find an ant hill, squat down low and observe! What we’ll find is that those ants work hard even though they don’t have a boss telling them what to do. They gather food in the present time so that they’ll have plenty in the future, tougher times. Ants encourage us to be self-motivated in working hard for the future.
Refuse to make excuses about why we cannot work. Don’t be like the lazy person who imagined all kinds of dangers awaiting him on the way to work, “There’s a lion in the road!” (Prov. 26:13). Really? Much better to make a decision that you won’t let excuses stop you. “I’m too tired, too hot, too cold,” or “I might get hurt in the traffic,” are just excuses. No more excuses! Overcome them at all costs.
Fight laziness head on. The sluggard lies in bed like a door that turns on its hinges (Prov 26:14). Don’t be like the sluggard. She is attached to her bed like a hinge to a door. Get to bed early and get up when the alarm goes off. Do what you promised yourself you would do when you went to bed. If you get up out of the wrong side of the bed at least you got up! But better still, get back in and get out the other side instead!
Use what you’ve got not what you wish you had. Many people wish they were in a better job, yet while they wish and complain, they miss opportunities to do amazing things in the very job they have been given. So, ‘whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might’ (Eccl. 9:10a). Kick super goals in the job you have. Exceed expectations and opportunities will open up for you. It is true that ‘all hard work brings a profit” (Prov. 14:23). Remember that the only time success comes before work is in the dictionary.

You could have literally thousands of days ahead of you where you will be engaged in some kind of work. Imagine what a decision to work diligently for the glory of God would do to the rest of your working life! So get to work!

Questions

What advice would you give someone who is finding their job too much like hard work?
Can you share any ways you have overcome work avoidance to become diligent?

Warning: watching this could lead to laziness and bring back some long repressed memories from the 80s!