The type of work most people loathe, and the experience doing it that changed my mind about ALL work.
With every rain storm and every sprinkler cycle, the water pooled. It sat there for hours, in the shade, not dissipating, just inviting insects and drowning the newly laid sod in the front yard.
A simple french drain was the answer. But simple does not always mean easy. This particular situation would require digging 40 feet of ditch, at least a foot deep at the beginning, with a few degrees of down slope across the span…all so the water would drain instead of pool.
While it’s not for everyone, I do fancy manual labor. But digging a ditch? That was not on my bucket list!
I thought, “time to hire someone”. That turned out to be short-lived because the renno budget for the front yard had already been exhausted. And if I wanted to avoid compounding problems, there was no more time for delay.
So I told myself, “you’re hired” (with a hint of dread in that self-speak).
Suddenly it occurred to me that this was an opportunity of a different kind…an opportunity to test my faithfulness to God and his wisdom about work. Thank you Holy Spirit.
Solomon wrote about work in Ecclesiastes 3.9-15. In v13 he said, “also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.”
You can probably see where this is going. I needed to find a way to take pleasure in digging a 40 foot ditch!
Believe it or not, choosing to trust God about this command and the truth that it is a gift was harder than figuring out how to find the pleasure in the toil.
Gratefully, that’s when the Holy Spirit became more noticeable as Helper. I remembered Proverbs 3.5-6 which pulled me over the trust line.
From there it became an exercise of constant prayer while I engaged in the project.
The beauty was the exchange that occurred. Instead of a mind consumed with dread, irritation, frustration, and impatience, I had a mind of problem-solving, appreciation, satisfaction, and yes even pleasure. In reflection, I can now take joy in the fact that this is evidence that I have the mind of Christ which Paul talks about in 1 Cor 2.
Yes I was sweating. And yes there were obstacles. With big trees all around the immediate area, there were thick roots all along the planned ditch path.
It was hard work. But it was indeed quite pleasurable to figure out my system for achieving efficiency in the process. It was pleasurable to stop periodically and appreciate the progress in the ground. It was pleasurable to sharpen my axe and cut clean through the roots. It was satisfying to figure out the right swing pattern with the pick axe that made pulling soil up pretty easy.
And it was gratifying to enjoy the finished work, having tested it to be sure it was done right. In fact, this work still delivers a morsel of pleasure every time I take the dogs on a walk and pass by it.
So what are the takeaways here?
Clearly, God is faithful and he is trustworthy. If, because of God’s faithfulness followed by a man’s obedience, a man can find pleasure in the toil of digging a ditch, imagine what pleasure a man can experience in work that is easier to like and do!
While suffering is a part of life as a Christian, it is not our whole lot! We can honor the Lord in our work, often enjoying the doing. To do so requires trusting and obeying. It means praying without ceasing as a means to trust and obey. To pray is “to hold the mind towards; to worship.” This is a simple choice that we can make as men with the mind of Christ - a mind that is responsive to the Holy Spirit.
While simple, one of the reasons this is not easy is because we as Christian men are under assault. Our minds are under siege from the world.
Many Christian men who are hard at work in the marketplace struggle with the trust and obey because it’s so easy to lose sight of our true identity in Christ. James hits the nail right on the head with this topic -
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
Not only does God provide us true identity in Christ, as part of that he also provides practical ways for us to be a better disciple…even in our work. There’s a path to consider and apply Scripture in a practical way with and in our work…to enjoy it more and to make it matter more. We cover that in Inflooent 101 workshop. You can learn more here.