What Is Your Choice of A Career?

We are truly glad that some young people in our midst are graduating and will be entering the phase of “working life.” Many of us, of course, “have been there and done that.” But still we praise God for His provisions for our young people.

People either love work or they hate it, and many today work for the wrong reasons and the wrong rewards. Whilst one extreme encourages us to be workaholics, the other dreams of a work-free leisure society. However, the Bible teaches that both extremes are wrong.

Work was ordained before the fall and therefore was part of God’s original blueprint for humanity. Work is therefore inherently good. God Himself is portrayed as a worker (Gen. 1), planning, deciding, ordering, doing, and evaluating repeatedly in creating the world. Indeed, God continues to work throughout history (cf. Ps. 121) and is constantly working even today (John 5:17). Not only is God a worker, God made men and women to work. When Genesis records the creation narrative for the second time (2:4ff.), it emphasises that the reason that the land was not yet fruitful was because there was no water and “no man to work the ground” (vv. 4-5).

However, God remedies both by providing abundant water (v. 6) and an active workforce (v. 7). The man is then placed in Eden both to “work” and to “keep” the land (v. 15) and soon provided with an ideally suited helper to assist him in his work (2:18-25). At the outset of creation, both work and marriage were tied to the service of God and the active caretaking of the world.

Work is not to be regarded as a necessary evil. When Paul wrote to the Colossians in 3:22-25 on “servants” (KJV) or “bondservants” (NKJV) -- that is -- workers, he commanded them to work sincerely “fearing God”. Humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow is famous for his “hierarchy of human needs.” Starting at the low end, people would want to move up the hierarchy from “physiological” needs (e.g. hunger and thirst) to “safety, social, esteem, and finally self-actualization” needs at the pinnacle.

Spiritual danger -- in the form of selfishness -- lurks in this scheme and way of thinking. Workers or employees who insist that their employers build those stairs up Maslow’s pyramid will miss the deeper truth and would be deluded. The Christian’s pyramid puts “witness-actualization” and “kingdom-esteem” at the top, and these needs can be met in any work situation, even dreadful ones. Fellow workers will be astonished at the believer’s lack of interest at advancement at any cost. Masters will be confused by the “servant’s” excellence in the absence of worldly incentives. Perhaps colleagues and masters alike will investigate the Christian’s motives and discover that pleasing Jesus is the goal. Then they might even find Jesus for themselves. Whether or not they do, the believer’s heavenly reward is secure (v. 24).

In a world where we are conditioned to think, “It’s all about me,” prospects for happiness are elusive. But those who understand that “It’s all about the Lord” will have all the self-fulfilment they can manage, not because they sought it, but because single-hearted devotion to God means abundant life, both on earth and in the world to come.

In a world confused about the place and priority of work, the true church of Jesus Christ has an invaluable contribution to make in any economy. It has God’s word on work. It can call on the lazy and idle to be engaged in work, comfort the stressed and the burned-out with God’s realistic view of work in a fallen world, and warn the workaholics not to be engrossed in work for the rewards it can bring.

In Him,
Rev. Robert Chew