The Love of Work

In giving counsel to young men in school, Pasteur said: “Ever since I can remember my life as a man, I do not think I have ever spoken for the first time with a student without saying to him, ‘Work perseveringly; work can be made into a pleasure, and alone is profitable to man….”

We keep coming back to this thought: that we develop and improve only as we use what God gave us. The power to think increases with thinking; the power to work increases with working; the power to study and concentrate increases with studying and concentrating, and in idleness there is only stagnation; indeed, more than that, deterioration. And the degree to which a person gives himself or withholds himself, determines the degree to which he will develop. We have to stretch ourselves; to be willing to give in order to get⎯to have something to offer before we make demands.

Time cannot be put in storage; talent cannot be put in storage; nor can life. What good is time if it is unfilled? What good is talent if it is unshared? What good even is genius if it is unused? And things done merely for money, or merely by the minute, as Phillips Brooks said, “only leave you the basest and poorest of its benefits.”

A person has to be willing to prepare himself to be better, willing to improve his output, willing to use what God gave him, and not withhold himself tightly until he sees the certainty of return⎯for if he withholds himself too tightly he still never see such return.

Thank God for work. Blessed is he who has learned to live with his work and to love his work.