The Gospel of Work

There are many opposing opinions as to what is considered to be success. And while some seek to prepare themselves for maximum service, there are some who seem to dedicate themselves to the idea of being free from work. But even when work seemingly ceases to be a necessity, it never ceases to be a principle and a privilege. Even when we don’t have to work, it is good to want to and wonderful to be able to.

And there is no way of going through life without consuming someone’s work⎯our own or others. W can’t eat without consuming someone’s work. We can’t travel without consuming someone’s work. We can’t use any substance or accept any service without accepting someone’s work. No matter what nature provides, or what men are able to make machines do, work is always somehow involved in the process of bringing the final product to people.

And no matter how much life becomes mechanized, men cannot be fully happy or have a satisfying sense of accomplishment⎯regardless of necessity⎯without willing work. The Lord God himself so ordered it: Surely He could have made less work for men if He had thought it were wise. Surely He could have put the precious metals of the earth in easy, convenient places. Surely He could so have ordered nature that we could reach out and take our living almost effortlessly. Surely He could so have ordered the elements that we would have little or no physical discomfort to guard against.

(Furthermore, He could have given us all the answers and spared us the need for faith as well as work, without so much searching and seeking.) But what would that have done for our development? Without work to do, without problems to solve, without challenging situations to wrestle with, without the necessity to learn and the need to believe and the willingness to do, what kind of soft and unresourceful creatures would we be?

This we recall from Carlyle⎯this from his words on work: “The most unhappy of all men is the man who cannot tell what he is gong to do, who has…no work cut out for him in the world. …For work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind⎯honest work, which you intend getting done. …” “The latest Gospel in this world is Know thy work and do it. …Blessed is he who has found his work.”