Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work by Timothy Keller

Author:Timothy Keller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: religion, Christianity, spirituality
ISBN: 9781101600337
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-11-13T05:00:00+00:00

Finding Hope for Our Work

We have been describing what work was designed to be and what has gone wrong with it. Even if we find ourselves doing the kind of work we want and in the best sorts of work environments, the broken nature of work seems overwhelming. “What hope is there for work? How can we put work right?” we may ask. How do we look past the deep problems and realize God’s purpose and plan? Is that a realistic goal, or is it just a nice idea that has no bearing on tomorrow’s meeting or next year’s career change?

We can begin to answer these questions only by first settling one sure fact: Nothing will be put perfectly right, as St. Paul says, until the “day of Christ” at the end of history (Philippians 1:6; 3:12). Until then all creation “groans” (Romans 8:22) and is subject to decay and weakness. So work will be put completely right only when heaven is reunited with earth and we find ourselves in our “true country.” To talk about fully redeeming work is sometimes naïvete, sometimes hubris.

Yet all is not lost. The transcendent hope depicted so poignantly in “Leaf by Niggle,” and the ecstatic vision of what creative endeavor will then be like, can go a long way to helping us work with satisfaction within the limits of this world. The Christian gospel decidedly furnishes us with the resources for more inspired, realistic, satisfying, and faithful work today. How?

First, the gospel provides an alternate story line for our work; this is vital because all work is propelled by a worldview or a narrative account of what human life is all about and what will help us thrive.

Second, the Christian faith gives us a new and rich conception of work as partnering with God in his love and care for the world. This biblical conception helps us appreciate all work, from the most simple to the most complex, by both believers and nonbelievers. So Christians who grasp a biblical theology of work learn not only to value and participate in the work of all people but to also see ways to work distinctively as Christians.

Third, the gospel gives us a particularly sensitive new moral compass, through a host of sound ethical guidelines to help us make decisions, as well as wise counsel about human hearts.

Finally, the gospel radically changes our motives for work and fills us with a new and durable inner power that will be with us through thick and thin.145

Most books and programs that help people integrate their faith with their work tend to focus on only one or two of these factors. Some, for example, emphasize the first. They take a somewhat academic tack and constitute theological principles into a “Christian approach” to art, government, economics, and so on. Some concentrate almost completely on the second. They fear that an overemphasis on a biblical worldview in work leads to triumphalism and fails to appreciate God’s broad providential activity. Others take a

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