Join God’s Business

My first fulltime job was on a market garden. Fresh out of school, I was paid $6 an hour (which, even in the late ’90s, was appalling) and each week I worked for 40 hours weeding and shovelling dirt.

While school friends began uni or headed off on O.E. or went on some sort of glamorous mission trip, I was busy earning a massive $480 per fortnight (before tax) in the complete antithesis of my dream job.

One of my workmates was a man in his 70s (but very fit for his age) who loved everything about this job. He loved the plants, the soil, the friendly fantails, the heavy and the stressful tasks. He even loved working in the rain (I suppose with all the watering taken care of it meant we had one less job). He always wore a smile, would whistle while he worked and, best of all, would take any chance he could to chat about a psalm or other Scripture that had inspired him earlier that day.

Bringing faith to work

His work seemed to give him life and he always brought life to the workplace. Essentially, he brought his Sunday faith with him on Monday morning and it was with him right through to Friday afternoon. And that faith rubbed off on me. Gradually, after many measly pay cheques found their way to my unappreciative (and sieve-like) bank account, the true meaning of the following Bible verses started to dawn on me:

‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving’ (Colossians 3:23-24).

‘… offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship’ (Romans 12:1).
 
‘… live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul’ (Colossians 1:10-11, The Message).

Pleasure in joining God's business

I asked myself why this man — who could’ve earned just as much on the pension (if not more) — was bothering to work, doing menial tasks for a meagre wage. The answer dawned upon me that this was part of his worship to God. He found joy in hard work, found purpose in brightening other people’s days and, perhaps most of all, found pleasure in joining in God’s business of creation.

Creation business? The Bible kicks off with God going to work (‘In the beginning God created …’ reads Genesis 1:1) and then quickly includes us in that same work (man and woman being made in God’s image and commissioned to care for the earth and make it fruitful).

Working is a critical part of who we are. My 70-year-old workmate understood this completely and, by the end of my six-month tenure at the market garden, I began to grasp it also.

My next job was at Burger King and at $7 per hour it too became an excellent place to worship God, a place where I could be who he made me to be: a fellow worker.

Let’s all of us take a check of why we work (whether it’s paid work or not) and invite God and his creative Spirit into every aspect of it.

By Hayden Shearman (from War Cry magazine)