A lot of people feel like their work is empty or meaningless.  Students in school feel this way very often.  The work we have been assigned seems like busy work or something unnecessary for us.  It is hard to find meaning in something you don’t feel like doing, that you don’t think will benefit your future, that you are growing to hate a little more each day.  Many young people today feel this way about mathematics.  If only I could do the things I want to do!  If I could just change my circumstances, life would be better!

It turns out that this is not just for kids who are struggling to see the value of math.  Adults get caught in this kind of despair every day.  The habits we form as young men and women can be hard to break when we are grown.  It helps to remember that every day is part of a progression; your life is not stuck in a standstill.  Your moments and hours may seem long and repetitive, but you are going somewhere.  Your life is advancing, and you cannot stop it.  The throttle is set—like cruise control— on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and you cannot stop or slow down.  You also cannot accelerate.  You can only steer.  How are you doing with the steering?  What choices are you making to keep the car on the road?

Now for a thought experiment:  How did the cruise control get set to one day at a time?  Did you do that for yourself? Your body needs to sleep, eat, and move every day.  Your life is stuck in this sun-up-to-sundown lifestyle.  Your eyes need light to see and function, and it just so happens that the sun rises and you can see its effects through a clear atmosphere.  That atmosphere, by the way, allows light through but protects you from most of the sun’s bad radiation. Why are these things like this?  How did it get this way?  Of course we’re talking about creation.  God made it that way and He sustains it for you as you progress through the days of your life.  This, so far, is about motivation. How can you find motivation today to see your life and your work—whatever it is—in a light that motivates you to excellence?  That is part of your design, too.

The Command

Colossians 3:23-24 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

In this case, God’s command is the solution to the doldrums and despair of a stagnant life with work you don’t want to do and the draw of all-too-convenient entertainment that stops you from doing it.  You can be excellent and enjoy the assignment you have received by reckoning what Paul tells the Colossian Christian servants about their work.  These people are at the lowest economic level, and their work seems to be meaningless labor that only improves the lives of their bosses or masters.  Your work does not matter because you enjoy it.  It does not matter because you want to do it or because the specific task is something that will benefit you directly.  It is not something for you to get after because it will directly improve your life or your future; it is something for your present best effort because God will do something with that in the eternal future!

Our motivation needs to be God’s pleasure.  We want Him to like what we are doing.  It takes some spiritual growth to come to see our lives as His, our work as for Him.  But when you and I start to consider that the Creator of the universe is interested in our endeavors, that He has our minutes and hours in His hand, that our future is something He cares about more than we do, it kind of blows your mind.  Sometimes maybe we think of God as so immense that He cannot possibly be taking note of our little math assignments.  On the other hand, we can get into a frame of mind that brings God down to our weak level, so that even if He is concerned with our meaningless tasks, that cannot have eternal impact.  Forget what your imagination says about God! The Bible teaches a truth that will change everything for our daily grind:  God is so close to you that He is with you in your work, but He so magnificent and powerful and loving that He is arranging history to make today’s faithful efforts “work together for good” for you.

Three Thoughts

1.  Your work matters to God.

2.  If you can trace the work you’re doing to God as the one ultimately assigning it, you can do what Col 3:23 is saying.

3.  Every command has a promise. God is saying to you in Col 3:24 that your work for Him counts FOREVER.

Story to Read

Check out David’s behavior is 1 Samuel 16-17. Two stories that fit together show David as God’s choice to be the king of Israel and how God makes David Israel’s choice for their king.  What kind of character qualities do you see in David?

What kind of daily worker was David before he was made king of Israel? How did he do with his father’s assignments? How did his Heavenly Father take care of him?