Today we’ll see some examples of building our work on God’s foundation.
We’ll look at four main categories of work: offered to God, or redeemed, subverted, or challenged for God.
Offered:
I knew an animator who I asked to design the opening credits for Redeem the Commute, and some other projects. She excitedly said yes, and lamented that no one ever asked here to do the work she loved as a ministry for God – other churches had always asked her to stack chairs!
Redeemed:
I knew a teacher who was moved to a new school in a rough part of town, where a depressing number of students come from families with addicitons and little support. She was not happy with the forced move, but then I asked her – what if God is putting you into these kids’ lives for a reason? There is a difference between teaching children for a paycheque, and teaching children because God loves children as his own, so that the teacher can see that God-given dignity in even the most difficult among them.
Subverted:
Imagine the same thing happening with the debt collector I mentioned on Monday. He could try to treat people with dignity, be gracious in encouraging them to get help, yet firm in that people should repay what they’ve borrowed. As he advanced in his job, he may be able to influence more humane practices across the board. But at some point, he may come up against a huge challenge…asked to extort, blackmail, extract crippling interest from helpless people, etc. Which brings us to:
Challenge:
That debt collector may find he just has to quit. The company may be conducting business in a way God can only challenge. But imagine if my friend took that expeirence and decided to start his own micro-lending firm!
How do you know which approach fits your work? It starts with knowing God’s story, and having a willingness to let it shape our lives. This is what our challenges are all about – learning and applying God’s big story, for the long term and in community.
Challenge: Consider your own work. Should it be offered, redeemed, subverted, or challenged? Discuss.
Then watch the attached video of Lyndsey, a teacher who sees her work through God’s story.
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We’re going to take a quick look at a passage from the Sermon on the Mount today, that we actually explored several weeks ago as part of that series. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/14LRCtP
Matthew 6:28-34 ESV says:
And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Jesus uses a good analogy – beautiful flowers are clothed in God-given beauty. But our human tendency is to see beauty as the product of our own hard work – we need to toil and spin if we want to be beautiful. We have invented entire industries of fashion, consmetics, pharmaceuticals devoted to helping us work for our beauty.
We regularly delude ourselves into thinking it’s all about us, from our beauty to our purpose in this world, and that can make it very hard to rest.
It’s so easy to feel guilty – I didn’t do as much as I should have last week, I forgot this, or I am so not ready for Monday. We always think we should be doing more. It can be particularly hard for entrepreneurs – every sale makes or breaks the company, every contact could be a sale.
So we stay up at night, or check our phone constantly, or just have our mind on work when it could be resting.
True rest means finding ways to put that kind of worry and guilt aside. Tomorrow, we’ll look at one more inner change that helps., then next week we’ll look at some practical hints, but for many this looks like prayer, some kind of different activity, and turning the phone off.
Question: What do you tend to worry about when you’re resting? Do you feel guilty about resting, or taking vacation?
Just in time for summer's blend of work and rest, Redeem the Commute is starting a new series of daily challenges to help busy people restore life to the commuting lifestyle. This seven week series will look at the meaning and purpose of work, rest, and ancient practices that have helped followers of Jesus to keep the two in perspective and balance for centuries.
