A Restful Kind of Work

*cliff notes and musings on Tim Keller’s sermon on work

Rocky Balboa couldn’t sleep the night before the big fight. He told his wife that he didn’t even need to win, but that he just wanted to go the distance. He simply said that he didn’t want to be a bum.

Madonna, in Vogue magazine said, “Every time I accomplish something I feel like a special human being, but after a little while I feel mediocre and uninteresting again. I find that I have to get past this again and again. My drive in life is from the horrible fear of being mediocre. I have to prove that I’m somebody.”

Harold Abram in the movie Chariots of Fire said, “I got ten seconds to justify my existence.”

What do these people have in common? They are all proving that there is something behind the work. They aren’t just working for money. They are working to find meaning and approval.

Steven Jay Gould, an atheist says, “We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a 'higher' answer - but none exists…this explanation, though superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating. We, therefore, have to construct any meaning ourselves.”

The big question is: How are we going to find meaning in this life without a God in our worldview? Answer: through our work.

The problem with this answer is that if anything goes wrong with our career, then we don’t have meaning anymore.

You see, there is work, and then there is a work behind the work.

The “work behind the work” is the grueling pursuit to find approval and significance from others in this world. And since others’ approval is not sustaining, we are on this tiring pursuit our whole lives.

But a restful kind of work is being offered to us.

The reason why God’s work is so different is because it is a work that flows out of rest - a rest that is freely given and is the result of His approval and acceptance and love for us.

When we have value and purpose and acceptance before we go to work, we can work restfully. We can go about our work with joy, using the gifts God’s given us, truly desiring to help other people, because we are not thinking about having to make a name for ourselves.

May you fall into God’s rest by trusting in the fact that Jesus died on the cross, wiping away your sins, so that you can have acceptance and approval and meaning and value – even before you wake up in the morning and start working.

No means a Yes

I Just talked with a student on the campus of University of California-San Diego who asked me a good question.

“If I keep doing good without becoming a Christian, will I be all right?”

He explained to me that he didn’t want to get into any sort of organized religion – into a system where he would have to be hyper-committed and enter into a life of begrudged submission.

I don’t blame him for keeping God at a distance since his view of Christianity is one that would require him to leave his life of joy and freedom and enter into a no-fun monastic life.

Tonight, here at the coffee shop, I’m trying to get my head around the truth that when we say NO to something, we also say YES to something. The spiritual life, which looks like a life of many no's, is also a life of many yes’s.

When we say no to buying a bigger house than we need, we are saying yes to the opportunity of alleviating poverty in our city. When we say no to pornography, we are saying yes to a more fulfilling marriage with out spouse. When we say no to an hour of TV we can say yes to an hour of communing with the God of the Universe.

We give our no's to the lesser things and at the same time give our yes's to the greater things.

I suspect that if I were to share this with my friend at UCSD that he would roll his eyes at the offer. I mean, spending time with God, alleviating poverty, or stopping an addiction to pornography might sound like a no-fun deal.

That is because God's path is like vegetables. When you are a kid, eating vegetables sounds like a bitter deal. But, by the time that kid is 70 years old, he will will realize that the health-driven path that seemed bitter in the beginning turned out to be the better option.

God is calling you and me from a junk food life (devouring the things that give us temporary pleasure) and into a life of unmatchable joy in Him.