When Work Feels Like Work – Week Five

I’m an achiever. I love the feeling of accomplishing something, of seeing it the whole way through. Checking something off the list brings a certain satisfaction. Seeing results and impact brings fulfillment. 

Being an achiever certainly has its benefits. It motivates and drives me and helps me stick with things. But it has its downsides too. One, in particular, comes to mind – from time to time, not everything goes according to plan. (Okay, maybe more than sometimes….) There are seasons when I am confident that I am doing the right things, working hard, and anticipating good things, only to be disappointed.

The reality is, no matter how hard we work, there are disruptions. All our projects don’t wrap up nicely. People don’t always react how we would expect. Things end prematurely. We don’t always see the fruit of our labor. We cannot reconcile all of the outcomes we experience. 

Even though work is a gift from God and an opportunity to reflect His glory, work cannot fulfill us. But there is good news for God’s children. Our work in this world is not the end of the story; completion of our work only comes in eternity. 

Through this series, I have shared from Timothy Keller’s work Every Good Endeavor, Connecting Your Work to God’s Work. Today, I want to highlight a powerful truth, a truth that transforms our outlook and gives us the strength to keep going in the hard days, a truth woven into the entire fabric of Scripture. 

Listen to how Keller explains the connection between our work today and eternity, “There is a God, there is a future healed world that he will bring about, and your work is showing it (in part) to others. Your work will be only partially successful, on your best days, in bringing that world about. But inevitably, the whole tree that you seek – the beauty, harmony, justice, comfort, joy, and community – will come to fruition.”

Work on this earth is incomplete. But work on this earth is not all there is. 

Contemplating eternity can be challenging for me. I relate to Paul’s words to the Corinthian church, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12 NASB) 

We cannot fully understand eternity, but we can look forward with anticipation. We know that the pain of this world is temporary and that God will ultimately restore everything in His time. 

In his work on the resurrection, Suprised By Hope, N. T. Wright reminds us, “You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are – strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself – accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world.”

You and I have the opportunity to partner with the God of the universe in His work. Human work is limited by time and space, but God’s work spans eternity. 

In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul clarifies this distinction between work that lasts for eternity and work that does not. “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.” (1 Corinthians 3:11-13)

God’s work always builds on His foundation. All other work is temporary and won’t withstand the test of time.

As we conclude this series on work, I want you to consider – is the work you do each day connected to God’s kingdom? That question is not so much about what type of work you do but more about how you do it. When people witness your work, do they see the character of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the kingdom of God? 

Remember, our work in this world is not the end of the story; completion of our work only comes in eternity.