Work

There are different kinds of work. Some involves physical labour. Living on a farm, I know something about this. I know what it is to end a day with my body pleading for rest after having put out significant physical effort.

Some work involves thinking and planning and strategizing and implementing. I know something about this kind of work because I’ve been responsible to keep an organization from staying tight to the curve for almost 15 years.

Some work is creative. It involves synthesis, putting things together that we’ve never seen together before. It involves stimulating your mind while waiting for a random thought to float by (who knows where they come from) so you can grab it develop it and make something that’s never existed. It might be a image, a song, a literary work, a mechanical device, even an idea. I know something about this, too, spending many hours a week staring at a glowing screen attempting to arrange little black squiggles that mean something on it.

Some work can be shared. Sometimes we can speed things up by adding more effort. On the farm, ten workers can get twice as much hay into the barn in an hour than five. Five can get more than five times in than one.

But some kinds of work don’t respond to more effort. When I’m writing a article, or a song, or creating a graphic image, more people around don’t speed up the process. More input might result in a better end product if those who are offering it are creative souls, but talk about the work doesn’t get the work done.

Travel is part of my life. I have a forty minute commute to the office. I can’t speed that up by adding helpers. If I were to get my strapping 17-year-old son, who is a huge help on the farm, to come with me, the trip would still take 40 minutes, not twenty.

No, some things are solitary efforts. Take, for example, what Jesus did for humanity at the cross. That was something that He did all by Himself. The Bible tells us that “...when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high...” (Hebrews 1:3 NKJV)

The spiritual life which God offers us does not come through some combination of Christ’s effort plus our effort. It is all of His effort. There is nothing we can add. It’s a bit of a blow to our pride, but we have the assurance that we are saved through faith. And even this is not something that is intrinsically ours; it is the gift of God, not a result of any effort on our part so that no one may boast. (See Ephesians 2:8-9)

Ron Hughes - with a salute to Richard Swanson for suggesting the idea
© March 2009