King Solomon’s Mines (8)

A young man rushed into a petrol station to use the pay phone (obviously before the days of cell phones).

The attendant overheard his telephone conversation as he asked: “Sir, could you use a hardworking, honest young man to work for you?” (Pause) “Oh…you’ve already got a hardworking, honest young man? Well, thanks anyway!” The boy hung up the phone with a smile. Humming to himself, he began to walk away, obviously happy. “How can you be so happy?” asked the eavesdropping attendant. “I thought the man you talked to already had someone and didn’t want to hire you.” The young man answered, “Well you see I am the hardworking young man. I was calling my boss. I was just checking up on my job!”

If you called your boss, disguised your voice, and asked about your job, what do you think your boss’s answer would be?

King Solomon had much to say about the value and rewards of a trait that is as rare as a ten-carat diamond – hard work. He also had a lot to say about the negative consequences of laziness!

Proverbs 6:6-8

“You lazy fool, look at an ant. Watch it closely; let it teach you a thing or two. Nobody has to tell it what to do. All summer it stores up food; at harvest it stockpiles provisions. So how long are you going to laze around doing nothing? How long before you get out of bed? A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there, sit back take it easy – do you know what comes next? Just this: you can look forward to a dirt-poor life, poverty your permanent houseguest!” (The Message)

Solomon tells us to bend down and learn from that tiny insect. Wake up and be like an ant. They don’t procrastinate. Be a self starter. There is no one supervising the ants but they get the work done. Take responsibility for your life, your attitudes, your values, and how you spend your time.

The Last Lecture is the title of a book based on a lecture by Randy Pausch – a man who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But his lecture wasn’t about dying – it was about living – about everything he valued in life. For example, he was able to get a high position at his university a year earlier than people usually do. That impressed other junior faculty members and many asked him what his secret was.

Compound Interest

“It’s pretty simple” he said. “Call me any Friday night in my office at ten o’clock and I’ll tell you. (Of course that was before I had a family.) A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard. As I see it, if you work more hours than somebody else, during those hours you learn more about your craft. That can make you more efficient, more able, and even happier. Hard work is like compounded interest in the bank. The rewards build faster.” He continued; “The same is true in your life outside of your job. All my adult life I’ve felt drawn to ask long-married couples how they were able to stay together. All of them said the same thing: ‘We worked hard at it.’”1 Those are great words of wisdom from a man who believed in making the days count instead of counting the days!

You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker; “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” For many people that’s the best reason they can muster for going to work each day. But what is the main reason for working hard? Is it just to make money? To achieve goals? For self-fulfilment?

The opening words in the book of Genesis provide us with the answer. “In the beginning God created” and “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:1, 31). Immediately we learn that God is a worker. He created human beings in his own image and he commanded them to go and work within his creation. We work because we are made in God’s image and when we work we are very much like him. We reflect him. Work therefore, is much more spiritual than we realise! This means any kind of work – housework, feeding the dog or building sky-scrapers.

In his letter to the Colossians the apostle Paul wrote; “Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people” (Colossians 3:23). We work diligently to honour our true boss. We can’t say “This is my business and I will do what I like with it.” Instead this should cause us to say “This is God’s business. He has put me in charge of it. I am responsible to him.” This doesn’t mean God is sitting back, giving orders, watching us from a distance and then evaluating our work. He loves us, and is working in us, enabling us to participate fully in the life he is sharing with us. “We are what he made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10 NRSV, emphasis added).

Are you working with all your heart at work, at home, at school? Are you doing everything to the best of your God-given potential, as if you were doing it for God? At work are you setting the standard for honesty, love, conscientiousness, excellence and promptness? Or are you taking short cuts, spending too much time taking tea breaks, gossiping about the boss and running others down?

Don’t go to extremes

Proverbs is not giving us permission to become workaholics. That’s just as dangerous as being a lazy person. It’s easy to slip into extremes and either work too hard or do very little work. We need a balance between work and play, time alone and time with others*. But the powerful lesson we see in many proverbs and throughout the Bible is that we are encouraged to throw ourselves fully into all of life (Proverbs 14:23, 24:30-34, Ecclesiastes 9:10, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10). Doing something well, so you can say “it is good” is part of being a Christian light in a greedy and dishonest world. When we do this life becomes exciting and rewarding.

Solomon tells us, “Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper and be satisfied” (Proverbs 13:4 NLT). This is not a promise of health and wealth but is more about our innermost being, our very core, the seat of our personality and emotions. Imagine being so contented and fulfilled that you hunger for nothing. That’s the kind of inner fulfillment that is promised to the hard worker.

So what should we do? Just go and do it. Proverbs are practical. Go and work for the glory of God. Don’t hold back. Hard work is demanding. It requires wisdom, vision, creativity and commitment. But it’s worth it!

 

1 Randy Pausch; The Last Lecture, p156.

*The story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 gives us insight into this. In that incident Jesus gently reprimanded Martha for being busy in the kitchen while Mary did that which was the right thing to do – spend time with Jesus.