Recently returned from our trip across the pond, which will surely generate a blog post soon, I squeeze one of my favorite topics into the last days of September: work. September merges Labor Day, Back to School, and the close of the fiscal year for many organizations, so I return to the theme of our labors. Ideas about work, career, and calling have interested me since I entered the workforce after college. Occasionally I still ask, “What should I be when I grow up?”
We interact with workers daily. At my local grocery store, I have observed the produce manager over the last couple of years. He stood out immediately as he always wears a dress shirt and necktie to stock and maintain the fruit and vegetable bins. Dressing up and keeping a groomed appearance express pride, not vanity. They show that one values a job and its responsibilities. In so many fields, including my own of education, workers dress down, go casual, looking less professional. This man respects his job and dresses to show it.
He also commits seriously to his responsibility. During a renovation of his corner of the store, he actively helped customers find items that had been moved from their previous locations. When I commented on the taste of a brand of blueberries, he offered a free replacement (which I declined). One day, I noticed him in an uncharacteristic golf shirt. He said he’d come in on his day off because his assistant had been fired. I don’t know if grocery retail is his lifetime work or a second career, but he clearly demonstrates the words of Scripture, “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.” (Colossians 3 v 23) Whether he knows the Lord or not, the produce manager does his job with excellence and pride, for the good of Food Lion and its customers. He rests well at day’s end, assured of a job well done.
God talks about the value of work for material provision and personal satisfaction throughout the Bible. You might be retired from a job as I am, or you may not be employed for other reasons, but we are all doing something, working in some sense, for as long as we live. In fact, the Bible verse referenced above is directed to slaves working for a master! Earlier in the Colossians passage, a similar phrase, “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,” refers to church ministries (Colossians 3 v 17). We can take pride in all that we do, doing things to the best of our ability, landing the attention and credit on the Lord Jesus.
