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“What do you do?” is a common question. By it, we mean, “What’s your profession?” I’ve heard that it’s a peculiarly American thing to ask. In many other cultures, asking about one’s profession is considered rude; it’s overly personal and immediately narrows a person’s identity to the job that he or she does. Americans take pride in being defined not by a line of royalty or by inheriting one’s place in the world but by the merits of our own work. There’s virtue in that, but it can also be a vice. Work can become overly definitional, as though that’s all there is and that’s all that defines us.
At the same time, many consider work as simply a necessary nuisance. We go to work to “pay the bills” or to “make ends meet.” And this is important; we all need to eat (2 Thess. 3:10). But in this view, work is simply a means to an end—“living for the weekend.” Many look to their retirement as the time when they’ll finally be able to stop working. The strongest opponents of work consider it a moral evil that must be endured for a period. The goal is to work enough so that you never have to work again.
The truth is that neither of these approaches is right. Work can’t hold the weight of our entire identity. Jobs are lost, money comes and goes, and the success of any good endeavor is often fleeting at best. But God created us as immortal souls who long for more. On the other hand, if we deny that work is worthwhile or more than simply a necessary evil, we find ourselves adrift, purposeless, bored. There’s something in our bones that wants to work.
The two extremes of “work as god” and “work as evil” point toward what our souls really crave: good work done unto the Lord (Col. 3:23) that doesn’t define us but fulfills us. He put Adam in the garden “to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15)—before sin ever entered the world. Work is good because God made it; it’s not a product of the fall. Unfortunately, in this fallen creation, good labor often is too hard, unfulfilling, and exasperating (Gen. 3:17–19). Yet Christians know what work is for, so we can take the precepts and wisdom of Scripture into every realm of work for the sake of God and neighbor. When we labor in the difficulties of this world in that manner, our light shines before men (Matt. 5:16) so that others may come to the Light of the World (John 8:12). Because His work is complete (John 19:30), ours can be transformed. All that we labor for in this life with His end in mind is not done in vain (1 Cor. 15:58), but God sees and commends it. And that’s work worth doing.