Let me ask you a question
Do you realize that your worth is more than your work? You are more than what you do. This is especially true among men, I can’t say how much this is true among women but I know it’s true among men. A group of guys together that are just meeting each other for the first time. The testosterone starts flowing, the pecking order is getting established, the competitive juices are abundant. Then somewhere about five minutes in the question is asked. “So what do you do?” Behind that is a sharp edge. “Is your work big? Is it profitable? Is it prominent? Is it significant?” The central message that seizes control of this confrontation between men like gunfighters on a dusty noonday street that says, “Mister, you are your work.”
Is that who you are? Let me ask it in another way. If you lost your job, who would you be then? Would you still be you? In any sense or on any level? What if your whole world was wrapped up in your work life and then the boss walked in and said, “You don't cut the mustard. The financial picture around here necessitates your downsizing. You’re out of here.” Who would you be if you didn’t have a job?
You say, “I’ve spent most of my adult years being defined by what I do. If I'm not defined by what I do how should I be defined?” That’s a great question. You’re not defined by what you do. You are defined by who you are. You want a clue about who you are. Take a look at what you want. What you want will go a long way in telling you who you are. What you desire most in life will tell you a lot about who you are.
You know what the Bible says should define our existence? A passionate and full love for God. It is so easy to get sucked into the American dream that we put our affections, our desires in the wrong place. We want the wrong things. You know what God wants from you and me? That we should seek Him first. That we would desire Him most. That He would be the object and the person of our greatest affections. The discontent and evil of this world has not come because our desires are too strong. The discontent and evil have come because our desires are too weak. We will settle for fleeting pleasures that ultimately don’t satisfy. The root of evil is we are the more info
kind of people that will settle for the love of money or the love of work instead of love of God.
We ought to seek God passionately the way a thirsty deer seeks water in a stream. The thing that hinders us is not that we are pleasure-seeking people but that we’re willing to settle for such pitiful pleasures and halfheartedly fool ourselves with ambition at work while all the while infinite joy is being offered to us. We have a longing in our souls that we try to satisfy with accomplishments, promotions and managerial excellence. We miss the boat when we do that. We mistake the echo for the shout. We’re looking at the creation rather than the Creator.
For those of us who are Christians, and I know many of my readers are not Christians, but those of us who are, we remember our lives before Christ. Sure we enjoyed food and friends and family and productivity and investments and vacations and hobbies and sports and art and travel. God was an idea. He was even a good idea. But He wasn’t our treasure. He wasn’t our delight.
Then faith came, the confidence came, that Christ made a way for someone like you and someone just like me to live in friendship with God forever. The confidence came that if I come to God through Jesus Christ He will make me a new person from the inside out. You remember that day when there welled up something within us like a cry to God. “Make me new!”
We settle for a career with a corner office, a well-funded retirement plan, a company car, a salary that will allow us to own our own home, an occasional night out. Because we’ve grown accustomed to such short-lived pleasures our capacity for joy has shriveled. These are puddles and God offers us the ocean.
How can you make your work work for you?
Maybe some should consider a career change. I know this is not an option for everyone here. But I know that many of you here thought it was not an option either, until you were laid off or the company was sold or your finances demanded a change. Up is not always best. Right now for some of you that kind of change isn’t possible. But I would like to suggest with some careful spending patterns, systematic debt reduction, prayerful planning, you could find options you never dreamed would be yours.
I know that most of you are going to wake up in the morning back to the old job, back to the old grind. What are you supposed to do?
