"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise!"
Proverbs 6:6
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This is my third year in high school. I really have begun to hate work.
I don't know how other people feel. I really have never heard anyone else in any of my classes tell me that they love to work. Who likes doing long, arduous, tedious tasks all day, then going to activities later, and then staying up even later than that so that they can finish everything with a clean mind about the matter? No, I really have come to despise it.
But there's just one problem with this. There is a few, actually. For one, hating this work doesn't make it all go away. I still have to do it. Secondly, there is a Biblical problem with this mindset. If I don't work, then I do not rightly fulfill my purpose for Christ in this world.
Why is it so hard? How is it that these necessary tasks are so painful? Is there something wrong with us, that perhaps other people might not have issues with?
In Genesis 3:14 it says that "And unto Adam he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree which I command you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In sorrow you shall eat of it all of the days of your life." So therefore in one sense the reason why work is hard is related to why there are earthquakes and tornadoes and death, among other things--due to original sin.
So if it is from original sin, what are we supposed to do about work? Are simply supposed to grind on bitterly, deploring it as a loathsome yet necessary duty?
No--as Christians we have no excuse.
We know this because in Collosians 3:23-24 it says "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." So okay, we know that we need to do work really well and vigorous, and we know that we are doing it for Christ. AND we know that doing so will bring us reward.
In Proverbs God tells us to "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise!" Now this, coupled with the verse from Genesis, might seem a little unfair. Sluggard? Me, lazy? But what does this mean? In what way do ants work?
I find the way that this verse is phrased to be quite interesting: "Consider her ways and be wise."
If you think about ants, and the lives they lead, one might be tempted to call them futile. Empty. Without purpose. But that isn't true--because purpose is defined by God. Those ants work and live exactly as they were designed and called by God to do, consistently, and we must do no differently.
So then, the question we must ask ourselves is this: For what purpose do we work?
In I Corinthians 10:31 it says that "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God." So not only do we have a means of work, and a description, but now we have a purpose. We are to do everything, including work, with but one purpose in mind--to do so for the glory of God.
And that is all that really matters.
I know not who if any shall read, but I am pleased to know it is well to write for Christ.
