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By Jacob Banta
The elusive desire of all people who will one day work is to find joy in the work they will spend most of their life doing. This is evidently seen in the many students today in high school and college not knowing what they want to do with their life. Pursuing majors they picked for various reasons - hoping to do good to others, make money to support their families, or perhaps even not diligently considering the possibilities because of the stress of the situation. This shocking fear to invest yourself into an education for an entire career that once out of school you might even hate after day in and day out, understandably causes many to be restless. The magnitude of people working jobs their degree wasn’t in and even jobs that don’t require a degree shows overall discontentment in the workplace. It could even make people long for simpler times of being a farmer because that’s what your family has done for generations, despite all of the other issues of life those millennia came with. But a simple life as a farmer is not how people will live today and is also not the focus of this article. People will continue working the jobs of the present economy and therefore the issues that come with seeking the elusive joy of work that ends in discontentment must be addressed.
The truth is people will tend to either make an idol out of their work or they will be idle in their work. As an idol, people may try to make their work the ultimate source of purpose and satisfaction in their life. We can glance over selfish reasons and instead look at the more noble purposes of doing good to others and providing for your family, but must recognize that even they will ultimately fail. These people will fail because their hope then is in themselves and no one needs be convinced of their own constant failures. If skeptical, then just ask them to look in their own hearts and feel all the bitter “could have beens” about life due to their own mistakes. I saw the seeds of this in my own parents, and even now new bitter fruit comes out of it that pains my family. Idolatry of work put fear into me at a young age, and unfortunately for me I thought if I stayed away from idolizing my future job, I would be just fine. This is when I backed into the shadow of idleness. Thankfully I have a loving God and loving friends who put a light on my sin and help me day by day put it to death. For this idleness kills if not killed first. This idleness runs deeper than merely being lazy or unproductive at work. This idleness is not an idleness of the hands, but an idleness of the heart. A heart that has grown cold to seeing any purpose in the work at all. Seeing work as just a drag to get to the more important things in life or a necessary evil to make money and open opportunity. Some people will tend to idolatry or idleness in work or perhaps even switch during life thinking one will cure the other. Do you see one undergirding the choices you have made up to this point in life?
This recent realization was a hard blow to my pride and has led to ongoing heart examination. There are some concrete truths that have laid a firm foundation to work upon and still more truths I will wrestle with in the future. At the groundwork my soul is more and more thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Before any work was to be done my heart had to rest again upon the good news that despite my sin and rebellion against God, Jesus took my sin and died for me so that I might be saved from death and live to him. With that news it is finished. There’s nothing I can earn from God. He did the work in love that now enables me to work for him. Not to earn anything but out of response to his love. Without this truth our cold dead hearts have no hope for life. Only the gospel makes a heart beat and seek good. Whether the idolatry of work or idleness in work (which I have found to be an idolatry of its own, the idolatry of self), both have to be laid down at the foot of the cross and put to death. I have grown to see that it doesn’t matter ultimately what I do, but ultimately who I work for, namely God. Whether I am an engineer or a missionary across the world, I serve the same God and am called to be faithful to Him. Work was a good command of God that came before the fall and we are to be good stewards of whatever role he has given to us. Understanding that work is a good thing, but not the good One is crucial to how we live our lives. With that I then finally grasped the first holdings at finding joy in my work because the reality is Joy can only be found in God and living for Him. With our time we either finally live in service to God or ourselves. I still struggle with finding what I want to do and being content where I am placed right now. I still struggle with doing good work in school or interning instead of just doing the minimum expected. I still struggle with my heart desiring my own selfish purposes instead of living for God’s purposes. Yet I take heart for my God has given me His peace and I can rest in that day by day.
In these trials I have reflected on this old hymn by John Newton. The bolded lines have uniquely struck a chord in my own heart as I seek his grace. Also beautifully written are “Be Thou My Vision” by Mary Elizabeth Byrne and “Great is Thy Faithfulness” by Thomas Crisholm.
I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and ev'ry grace
Might more of His salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face
'Twas He who taught me thus to pray
And He, I trust, has answered prayer
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair
I hoped that in some favoured hour
At once He'd answer my request
And, by His love's constraining pow'r
Subdue my sins and give me rest
Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart
And let the angry pow'rs of hell
Assault my soul in ev'ry part
Yea, more with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed
Humbled my heart and laid me low
"Lord, why is this," I trembling cried
"Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death?"
"'Tis in this way," the Lord replied
"I answer prayer for grace and faith"
"These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou may'st find thy all in Me"
Jacob Banta, of Crestwood, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2024 at the University of Louisville. He plans to study civil engineering and political science.