Dear Faith Family,
Whatever you do, work from the soul, as for the Lord and not for humanity…"
(Colossians 3:23)
What would it take to follow the apostle Paul's exhortation to "work from the soul"? To work from the core of who you are, what makes you uniquely you in the image of your Maker? Well, as we discussed on Sunday, it takes several things.
First, we'd have to recognize the truth of our relationship to work. While we are often guilty of trying to get out of work, or using work to get something else we want, the truth in our story's beginnings is that work is not a curse to avoid nor an obstacle to overcome, but the good in which we are made. Work has its pains, but it is not because work is cursed, but rather the "intentions of the thoughts of the hearts" of the workers, like us, are twisted. Still, according to the story, our off-the-mark nature is bound within the grace of God's persistent-as-the-sunrise-and-seasons promise, his covenant to preserve life good in partnership with us.
What was true at the beginning is being renewed in Jesus, and once we recognize that reality, we can embrace a fuller understanding of work. Work, according to the story, is everything we do in partnership with God to bless others for the flourishing of the world, everything we do to make life good. That's why Dorothy Sayers can describe,
"work… should be looked upon—not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God... For a man's work is the measure of man's life, and a man's satisfaction is found in the fulfillment of his own nature…."
Once we recognize the extraordinary grace that enables us to make life good, and understand that everything we do, in word or deed, to make good life for others is the good work for which we experience our good, then the question becomes: how? How do we live into this (re)new(ed) life in Christ? Well, the apostle Paul helps us there, too:
"If then you have been raised with Christ... renewed in knowledge after the image of [our] creator... put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians 3:1,10, 14)
The original language suggests not that we put on love in some general sense, but rather, that we put on the love which brings all of life into "perfect harmony" with the (re)created order and intent of its Creator. Only when we dress ourselves in the Love from which we exist and persist as preparation to enter the labors of another day, can we love the specifics of the work for which we are uniquely fashioned and providentially placed—loving work, not for what we accomplish through it, but for its essential goodness and ours. \
This is how we begin to work from the soul: recognizing the grace of our story's beginning and its renewal in Christ so that we might more fully understand what our good, the good is, which is our participation in blessing that leads to flourishing bound by Love. Such recognition is a beginning, but not all there is to the story. Still, it is where we must begin if we are going to stop trying to get out of work and (re)discover what we are meant to be Get(ting) Out of Work. So, let's begin by...
1. (Re)Listen to Sunday's Sermon.
2. Consider: What am I missing in our love(lessness) of work?
3. Attend: Where have I witnessed love at work, been the recipient of someone working from their soul?
May the loveliness of the LORD rest upon us, confirming the work that we do.
Love you, faith family. God bless.