Labor & Rest

 Many of us are doing something different for this Labor Day weekend and before we get back into our routine, I wanted to encourage you to pause a moment and examine the role that labor and rest play in our routines.

For me, this is my peak season at work.  Recruiting work in general is a sentence that doesn’t have a period.  There is always someone that could be hired, strategy that can be worked on – in short, work to be done.  With peak season, if I wanted I could work from 6 in the morning to 10 at night all week and go to bed knowing there is more that can be done. 

Maybe you can relate to this.  I can see my wife Laura with our sons, Bert and Benji, working on school plans, taking care of their needs -- sometimes getting up at 6am and staying up until 10pm.  And with our kids, if we choose to, we could always go to bed feeling like there is more to be done. 

So where does Christ fall into our work – and our rest?

Our Work

Colossians 3:23 says “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men”. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can read a scripture like this and shred away all other context to allow the verse to ‘work’ for my reality.  In this case, I can read this verse and feel – can I go as far to say justified – in working long hours for my company.  To investing much of my energy into being successful in the workplace.  After all, shouldn’t I be working for my employer like I’m working for God? 

What’s missing here is the ‘why’.  Why should I be working in this way?  Without the ‘why’, I can feel justified into buying into a view of work that has been corrupted by sin. 

Before sin, God placed Adam in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.  This was good work!  And it was work that was for God’s glory – an external focus.

After the fall – this changed.  Not only was the work more burdensome (as God had cursed the ground), men began to work for their own glory.  By chapter 4 in Genesis, Cain had built a city and named it after his son.  We turned inward and began to work for the wrong reasons.

And now we have every temptation to invest in work for these wrong reasons, conveniently disguised by cultural expectations.   Job security is worse – if we don’t perform, our job can be eliminated. The upper tier of company employees make a higher ratio of pay in comparison to those at the bottom than their predecessors did – and those that are making bank are expected to put in countless more hours.  Those that aren’t at the top may have to find multiple jobs – leading everybody to be overworked.  And there’s technology.  You can now work anywhere, which means we do.

So our culture has become a place where ‘you define yourself by defining what you want to be and attaining it – and then you have significance.’ This is very different from previous societies where you got your meaning in life through your family (rather than your career) and adds more psychological, social and emotional pressure on work to be fulfilling, or at least lucrative. 

So let’s get back to the ‘why’.  And for that, we can head right back to the verses proceeding and following Colossians 3:23.

Colossians 3:22b-3:24 “but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.  You are serving the Lord Christ.”

Did you see that?  It’s not about working for our own glory.  Our own security.  Or to find our significance. It’s about serving the Lord Christ and having rest in knowing that He has and will continue to take care of all of the rest for us!

This opens the door for a whole new view on our labor and some questions that could shake up our routines.

·       John 6:27 says: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.”  Does my labor do this? Or how can my labor do this?

·       1 Corinthians 15:58 says: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” How can I abound in the work of the Lord?  Am I laboring in vain – and if so, how can this change?

·       And back to Colossians 3 – verse 17: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”   How do I do this in my labor?  How can I do this in my labor?

Our Rest

This past week, I went to our church’s Wednesday evening meal fully planning to stay no longer than an hour.  Work was busy and I knew what would happen to me – I’d have a harder time enjoying the chill time.  My mind would wander to the work.  I might even feel guilty about it – either from the meal taking time away from my work OR it taking time away from my family (because I’d have to work later). 

In the Saturate Field Guide, the author states “I have discovered that my lack of faith in God’s power to save, sustain and secure me is displayed in my lack of ability to truly rest, create and play… Too many of us can’t rest and create. But we should be the most playfully rested people on Earth, because our Dad has it all taken care of for us!”

Talk about a moment of self-reflection!  How often do I allow the labor of the world to trump rest?  It’s easy to do – missing rest time doesn’t typically come with the direct consequences that are associated with missing work time.  I miss an intentional moment with my family, my church, my community – they’re still (probably) there.  I miss an assignment for work – our mind starts going to the worst case scenario.

So what does that say about our faith and trust in God?  It gives me a gut check.  But I know that Jesus knew this could be a struggle for me – and paid the ultimate price for me anyway!  In Matthew 6, he calls his audience “O you of little faith” because he knew some of them were anxious about earthly security.  But rather than being anxious about having this security, he tells them to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  We put our trust in Jesus, and we can give these worries over to Him.  He has us in His hands. 

This takes me back to the Saturate book (which I’m pulling this next section from) and the Rhythm ‘ReCreate’ – a word for ‘Rest and Create’. ReCreating means we take time to rest, play, create, and restore beauty in ways that reflect God to ourselves and to others.

Our God created and then rested (Genesis 2:2-3).

He didn’t stop sustaining the universe and take a nap.

His rest was a deep satisfaction with what he had created.  His creation was very good.

If you believe the good news of Jesus Christ, you can truly rest. 

·       We can live with the confidence that God is running the world, so we don’t have to.

·       We can be settled at heart, knowing that Jesus has done all the work necessary to make us acceptable to God, so we no longer need to try to earn his acceptance through our work.

·       We can work with all of our hearts unto the Lord out of gratitude and actually be at rest while we are working.

If we believe the gospel, we can create amazing stuff as an outpouring of our new identity as new-creation people.

·       We have been freed from enslavement to the approval of others

·       We are daily becoming more like our Creator.

o   Because He has restored and is restoring us, we also are able to bring restoration to things broken, distorted or marred by sin. 

o   This leads us to work in a state of rest, create at rest and play at rest.

With this perspective, Labor Day for us can be both a celebration of the labor that God is leading us to do, and a day in which we can enjoy intentional rest in the finished work of Christ.

Dave Wyant