GOD-GIVEN WORK

Tomorrow morning, on behalf of Mission Resource, I get the opportunity to address the monthly men's breakfast group at Community Church of Columbus, my former church home.

I help in the kitchen each month as a way to keep ties there. The menu always includes biscuits and gravy, hash browns, scrambled eggs and sausage. There's always prayer and worship music and then a guest speaker. Dave Ketchum and I will be filling that role tomorrow.

The attendance averages around 35 to 40, so there's always a good energy there.

As a Scriptural grounds for my portion of the talk, I plan to read Genesis 2:15 -

In my recent preaching on the opening chapters of Genesis, I haven't had time to pursue this aspect of the text: Work is not just some necessary evil - it was a part of God's plan from the beginning. 

Consider this: God put Adam to work even before taking care of his need for companionship. Adam was employed as a gardener. And the work was to be done in God's image - when Adam was on the job, he was functioning as God's representative.

And it was all God's idea. 

And when everything went south and Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden, their work got more difficult - what with thorns and sweat and all - but it was still to be done in God's image and at His behest. 

Work could still be a godly pursuit. 

Even most Americans have at least some idea of the suffering which comes with extreme poverty - lack of healthcare, inability to put your kids in school, getting by on one meal a day. Or less. But we don't often consider this aspect of extreme poverty: the spiritual pain and the loss of human dignity when there is no work to be done.

I have met some incredibly talented people in Haiti and in Ghana. In those places it is the slimmest minority who find work which expresses their unique God-given talents. Most would consider themselves blessed to be hired to dig ditches for a couple of dollars a day. 

I sometimes wonder what sort of talent is going to waste all over the world simply because it's trapped in places without opportunities. 

That idea is part of what keeps me motivated to support Mission Resource with my own time and talents. We are in the business of creating opportunities which don't exist otherwise.