Why Work?

Which came first, the video or the thought?

Sometimes I’ll watch a video and it will inspire a blog entry.  Sometimes I’ll have a stream of thought and that will inspire a blog entry for which I’ll look for any related videos.  This entry was the latter.  The video is fascinating though for the concepts it reveals about relationships and what a person is motivated by.  Whether I agree with it or not is not the point.  What you think about it is of great interest.

Yet there’s a reason for posting it and that was the thought I was thinking that motivated it. Apparently the dude’s name is Erich Fromm and if you believe everything you read on Wikipedia, maybe you should stop reading!  Still, if the profile is to be believed the hombre is a ‘humanistic philosopher’ and ‘democratic socialist’.  Which is nice.  If that’s your thing.  I’m not so much a humanist, really, only because my worldview perceives God to be the centre and reason for all existence, which displaces the centrality of the human that a humanist would want me to buy into.  Doesn’t mean I can’t hear what they’re saying.

What he’s saying and what I’m saying revolves the issue of work.

The thought that inspired the post was on the motivation for work.  Why work?  My dad in particular did not live a life that suggested that he worked to get money.  That was not his primary motivation in working.  It was evident there was more to it than that.  There is also the element of working to fulfil your life’s responsibilities, i.e. pay for the rent/mortgage, buy food, provide other material needs for you and your family if applicable. My perception of society when growing up was that there were ‘stuff’ I could enjoy and to do so I had to find legitimate methods of accumulating funds to get the ‘stuff’.  that means was work.  Little was really brought across about vocation.  Careers advice wasn’t really about what suited you, more what you could do based on an assessment of your skill-set.  I never got that much guidance from my Christian community especially because I was considered to be one of the ‘bright ones’ as I did the school run of doing school, Sixth Form before finishing the hat-trick with going to university and getting a degree.

The question still remained – why work?  In fact the thought of work, if it was anything like the domestic chores I worked hard to avoid was not my idea of a good time.  so it was that inevitably as my walk with Jesus became more serious as I grew to appreciate His Lordship in all life, so the answer began to emerge.

Sometimes the Christian life can be full of cliches.  Words and phrases often biblically inspired sound glib, rehearsed and contrived as we seek to avoid addressing real issues and hide behind the phrase of the day.  Yet the potency in the actual words – especially when they’re rooted in what God says can be recovered.  One of the cliches that can be refreshed and appreciated for its originality power is the phrase ‘for the glory of God’.

I agree with the sentiment of this second video that everything we do has to be done as though it’s for God.  As though God will be glorified from it.  That perspective means it is no longer just a means to getting money to pay the rent/mortgage.  It most certainly no longer the way that I can get ‘stuff’ beneficial though that maybe.  The deal with why work is that it is part of the fabric of every human being to work.  As I mentioned even working hard to avoid domestic chores suggest the active pursuit of applying the brain and body to some cause, however detrimental it may be.  (Of course I didn’t avoid the domestic chores at all – maybe I should have worked harder!)  There is something about work – not just conventional concepts of paid employment, but actively fulfilling God’s call on life that is fulfilling.  It might not always feel fulfilling, but it turns out to be that way.

That’s why I work.  It works for me.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd