How Hard Do I Have To Work To Be Successful?
Two traps hinder our flourishing in work—idleness or idolatry. Idle or Idol.
Idleness, at its root, is a total lack of activity.
Idolatry, at its core, is deriving our ultimate satisfaction and our identity from anything but our Creator.
One of these traps causes us to treat work as an inconvenience, or an obstacle to the life we want, or a means to an end—a way to get money.
In the book The Gospel at Work, Sebastian Traeger, one of the book's co-authors, tells the story of what would become the first of many startup ventures in his life. He started a Deck Sealing business as a high school student.
He writes that his driving motivation in the business was not to provide superior service or even to beautify the neighbourhood; it was to seal as many decks as possible, in as little time as possible, with as little effort as possible, for as much money as possible.
We can contextualise this by calling it Popeye’s effect. Yeah, the chicken sandwich is superior, but it might just be kicked at you through the drive-through window.
Traeger goes on to say that because his core motivations were off, his work was terrible. He would fail to move potted plants on some decks, only to be called back to redo the job because when the homeowner later moved the plants in the Autumn, they would discover unsealed circles where the plants had been.
When we under-identify with our work, treating it as a means to an end, idleness at work results. Of course, when we think of idleness, we tend to think of total inactivity, but that is not what is in view here—few, if any of us, are totally idle.
Yet, there are subtle forms of idleness and under-identification with work.
A failure to recognise God’s purposes for us in our workplace.
Restricting our value as a Christian to what we do in the church.
Only doing the minimum to get through the day.
Seeing work as a necessary intrusion into your “real” life.
The other side of this equation is almost distinctly Western and uniquely American—the idolising of work.
Several years ago, one of my friends lost everything. He is a prolific business person with an almost otherworldly sense of what the market is doing or will do. He had amassed a great deal of wealth and status at a relatively young age—and then the bottom fell out.
Some of you may not be old enough to remember the housing market, and subsequently the Stock Market hitting nearly rock bottom thirteen years ago, but many of us do.
I will never forget the sense of despair that consumed him. Much like Maui’s declaration in Moana, “without my hook, I am nothing,” his statement about his situation shifted from “I have nothing” to “I am nothing.” Why?
His entire identity was wrapped up in what he did and the life he built—no wonder there was despair when he thought it fell apart.
He had missed birthdays, ball games, family meals, worship with God’s people, all in the name of one more meeting, one more call, one more email, one more venture. His hope was not in God, it was in his success, circumstances, and ability [falsely believed] to control the future.
Does either of these traps sound like abundant life?
Do either sound like the flourishing for which God designed us and that which He desires for us? The answer to both those questions is an obvious no.
God does not want us idle or idolatrous in our work. God wants us to flourish and to take delight in our work. God desires to Get His glory through the work we do and the things we produce.
Wonderfully enough, His glory is the means to our most profound satisfaction and greatest flourishing.
Even if you are in the best frame of heart and mind you have ever been in your life, you have a leaning, a leaning either toward idolatry or idleness in your work, and the call of God on the life of His children is clear—Do not be idle or idolatrous in your work.
So which is it, is your leaning toward idleness or idolatry?
In their book The Gospel at Work, Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert offer us some helpful diagnostic questions. These are questions you can ask yourself, but they would serve you better to discuss them in community.
To the questions, then.
Am I idle in my work?
Is my work merely a means to an end, a place to serve my own needs?
Does my work totally frustrate me?
Has my work become divorced from my Christain Discipleship?
Is work my Idol?
Is work the primary source of my satisfaction?
Is my work all about being the best so I can make a name for myself?
Has my work become primarily about making a difference in the world?
We could ask more questions, I am sure, but these six should be a great start to do the hard work of digging deeper into our hearts and motivations.
As you dig into your own view of work, and what it reveals, the scriptures offer a simple but profound path forward—commit your work to the Lord. It is the remedy for the idle and your idol.
When we commit our work to the Lord, we will work for Him and not others; we will work for Him and not ourselves. We will be free.
What if you were on time, gracious, diligent, good-natured, productive and proactive not to look good to others, but because you know who you are in Jesus?
What if you were successful, not through tireless grinding so that you might make a name for yourself, but through healthy rhythms of work and rest, making God most honoured in what you do?
Do you believe the world would awaken to a different way, a new way, an altered paradigm that shifted everything? I do.
I believe you can.
I believe you will.
Resources to Dig Deeper into Faith and Work