This morning I’m back to work after almost a full week of time resting, playing, and enjoying the Christmas holiday with family. It feels good to take significant time to step back from the daily press and rush of work. But it feels better to make real progress and impact through good work. After all, one of the first things we were given as human beings was the gift of purposeful work. Adam and Eve were commanded to fill the earth and subdue it. The Apostle Paul reiterates the fact that we have work to do when he tells the Ephesian church that followers of Jesus are, “ created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10)
A question for you today as we near the new year: are you hard at work?
The holiday season can lull us into a love of leisure and pleasure, but we must not let ourselves get caught up in prioritizing relaxation and entertainment. Hear the warning from the writer of Proverbs:
Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread,
but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty.
– Proverbs 28:19
The land
Most of us don’t have any literal land to work, and even if you’re a farmer here in the Fargo area there’s not much “working of the land” that you can do when it’s buried under two feet of snow. But the principle still stands: if you work you will have plenty.
What’s the “land” God has given you? Whether you’re a manager at a retail store, a CEO of a fortune 500 company, a stay-at-home mom, or a missionary in a third-world country, God has given you work to do. Are you doing it?
The work
Working is more than just showing up and doing the bare minimum. The successful farmer in the day that this Proverb was written put in hard labor to produce a crop of plenty. We’re called to do the same. Paul put it this way in Colossians:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.”
Colossians 3:23-24
How will you do this in 2020? Give your all to the work that God has given you. Think strategically. Leverage your strengths. Learn new skills. Invite feedback. Work your land and you will have plenty.
The plenty
When we work hard God has promised that we will be rewarded. For many of us this reward comes in the form of a paycheck and we have the expectation that if we’re doing really good work our paycheck will get larger as the years pass. While this may be the case, as the Proverb hints, it may not be.
The plenty you receive may be a plenty of the satisfaction of soul that comes from doing good work, or the plenty of skills and strengths that come from consistent growth. Whether we receive a monetary or earthly reward for our hard work, God has promised that when we work we, “will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.”
The following
In contrast with working the land, those who follow worthless pursuits end up in poverty. Note that word: follow. Whereas work takes intentionally, worthless pursuits draw you along. All you have to do is follow their lead. It’s far easier to slump into worthless pursuits than it is to work your way into plenty.
The worthless pursuits
What are the worthless pursuits that we are tempted to follow? The answer may vary widely based on what your “land” is, how God has wired you, and your current circumstances. But all worthless pursuits have at least this in common; they don’t produce anything beneficial to you or those around you.
Worthwhile pursuits always produce something good. The thing produced may be an “intangible,” such as a sense of peace and God’s presence or a well-rested body or a deep connection between you and another person, but it has produced something good. In contrast, worthless pursuits either produce nothing or even produce negative results.
The poverty
The problem with worthless pursuits is that following them ends in poverty. If you spend the time you should have spent studying on video games, you’ll end up with a poverty of GPA when the semester concludes. If you spend your time mindlessly scrolling Instagram when you could have been playing with your kids, you’ll end up with a poverty of relational capital when it matters most. If you spend your time doing trivial, easy-to-complete tasks rather than tackling the big, challenging tasks in front of you for the day, you’ll end up with poverty of will and progress. And if you keep following those worthless pursuits you’ll end up with, as the Proverb says with harsh irony, “plenty” of poverty.
Don’t let 2020 be a year dominated by worthless pursuits. Instead, commit here and now to working the land that God has given you. Invest deeply in the relationships you have. Grow significantly as a follower of Jesus. Do some seriously good work at your job. Achieve a dream that you’ve yet to achieve. Not sure where to start? Here are a couple tips. However you get there, get there. Work hard. It’s worth it.
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