Surprised by a Job's Joy
The experience was very much like finally locating the lingering source of an unpleasant smell, although the actual aroma in the diner where I gathered with friends was pleasant enough. The night before, I had been gathered with a different group of guys studying Jeff Vanderstelt's Gospel Fluency and admitting to areas in which we failed to believe the Gospel applied. Many of us, it seems, believe Christ's power and intentions for our eternity but not in the comparatively easier challenges we face on a daily basis. In this discussion, I admitted to having difficulty believing that my new job was going as well as it was. I was, I admitted, waiting for the other shoe to drop in spite of all the amazing ways Christ has shown Himself faithful and generous on this job, and in its predecessors.
I was fully prepared to convict (good) and condemn (not good) my own heart as the source of this failure to believe. But the next morning, I discovered the smell of unbelief was not wholly self generated. Two other guys, one a friend of long-standing and considerable influence, were discussing their workplace experience, complaining about it, really. One was talking about the particular difficulties his wife was facing on the job at the moment, and the other endorsed with vehemence, "That's how any job is, anymore." In a flash, I recalled many of this long-standing friend's statements, he thought, warning me when I was enjoying experiences on the job, and, he thought, giving me perspective whenever I told him about a vocational difficulty. His take away message, at least as my biased ears and heart heard it was, that's nothing. Toughen up. You've got it good. Every other job is worse.
If his intended message is that working a fallen world will never be completely fulfilling and that we shouldn't compound work's frustrations by being completely surprised by them, he has some backing from Genesis 3. There, Adam sinned and was told by God that he would earn his bread by the sweat of his brow and would return to the ground he tilled. That doesn't describe every day or every aspect of the human work experience, however. Much of MY sweat of late came in trying to cram or contort blessings on the job into a continual narrative of The Fall. There's more to the story, and more to the Bible.
I leave the details of the counter narrative, the one that makes it not entirely unspiritual to be optimistic that Christ can show Himself good on our jobs to Psalm 104. What it points to about His character transcends any era and any particular job, and keeps me from bragging on mine in ways that could produce envy or misunderstanding. Psalm 104:10-15 begins with the rhythm of a babbling brook, worshiping God because, "He sends the springs into the valleys; they flow among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. By them the birds of the heavens have their home; they sing among the branches. He waters the hills from His upper chambers; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of Your works. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread with which to strengthen man's heart." It is with this strengthened heart, normally, let verse 23 summarizes, "man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening."
Vocational catastrophe or even grating, exasperating frustration, apparently, is not the norm. All my "prayers" that asked for help in being better prepared for jobs that offer no sense of community or purpose because I was going to be more "realistic" with the rest of my career only made it more of a Christ-centered marvel that I was able to persevere under such a load to keep applying until He opened the right door, at the right time, for the right job. He has, and I see more evidence than I could write about, even if I didn't have a particular prophetic caution against sharing work details. I'm with CS Lewis in Surprised by Joy in that titular experience. Lewis says he heard so much about and adulthood of looming disasters from a father prone to anxiety that he was actually surprised at the regenerating pleasantness God allows the grounded, reasonable grown-up. I'm also more discerning in what I will take from one individual's perspective as I learn how often overreliance on such human filters can dim the ways in which Christ continues to reveal Himself.
I was fully prepared to convict (good) and condemn (not good) my own heart as the source of this failure to believe. But the next morning, I discovered the smell of unbelief was not wholly self generated. Two other guys, one a friend of long-standing and considerable influence, were discussing their workplace experience, complaining about it, really. One was talking about the particular difficulties his wife was facing on the job at the moment, and the other endorsed with vehemence, "That's how any job is, anymore." In a flash, I recalled many of this long-standing friend's statements, he thought, warning me when I was enjoying experiences on the job, and, he thought, giving me perspective whenever I told him about a vocational difficulty. His take away message, at least as my biased ears and heart heard it was, that's nothing. Toughen up. You've got it good. Every other job is worse.
If his intended message is that working a fallen world will never be completely fulfilling and that we shouldn't compound work's frustrations by being completely surprised by them, he has some backing from Genesis 3. There, Adam sinned and was told by God that he would earn his bread by the sweat of his brow and would return to the ground he tilled. That doesn't describe every day or every aspect of the human work experience, however. Much of MY sweat of late came in trying to cram or contort blessings on the job into a continual narrative of The Fall. There's more to the story, and more to the Bible.
I leave the details of the counter narrative, the one that makes it not entirely unspiritual to be optimistic that Christ can show Himself good on our jobs to Psalm 104. What it points to about His character transcends any era and any particular job, and keeps me from bragging on mine in ways that could produce envy or misunderstanding. Psalm 104:10-15 begins with the rhythm of a babbling brook, worshiping God because, "He sends the springs into the valleys; they flow among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. By them the birds of the heavens have their home; they sing among the branches. He waters the hills from His upper chambers; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of Your works. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread with which to strengthen man's heart." It is with this strengthened heart, normally, let verse 23 summarizes, "man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening."
Vocational catastrophe or even grating, exasperating frustration, apparently, is not the norm. All my "prayers" that asked for help in being better prepared for jobs that offer no sense of community or purpose because I was going to be more "realistic" with the rest of my career only made it more of a Christ-centered marvel that I was able to persevere under such a load to keep applying until He opened the right door, at the right time, for the right job. He has, and I see more evidence than I could write about, even if I didn't have a particular prophetic caution against sharing work details. I'm with CS Lewis in Surprised by Joy in that titular experience. Lewis says he heard so much about and adulthood of looming disasters from a father prone to anxiety that he was actually surprised at the regenerating pleasantness God allows the grounded, reasonable grown-up. I'm also more discerning in what I will take from one individual's perspective as I learn how often overreliance on such human filters can dim the ways in which Christ continues to reveal Himself.
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