Beating On-the-Job Blahs
Who hasn’t known those downer days at work? Each of them feels like a drizzly Monday. The routine, the redundancy, the tattered to-do list—everything runs together into the same old meaningless, hopeless, tasteless, stew.
So universal are these blah days that they inspire countless blog headlines. Some samples: “How to Beat the Blahs at Work.” “How to Cure a Case of the Blahs at Work.” “7 Ideas for Surviving Workplace Blahs.” The gospel provides blah-defying truth that eclipses all such advice. That truth comes packed in this capsule: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).
Yet in spite of knowing and following Jesus for many decades, I had missed the connection with this gem of truth. It came home to me when N. T. Wright, in a YouTube video, explained Romans 8:30. That’s where Paul says, “those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” In this lecture, Wright said, “glorification there doesn’t mean going to heaven. It means . . . being put in charge.”
Pause and ponder that definition. For Jesus, his glorification put him in charge with “all authority in heaven and on earth.” Now, in him, says Wright, we are already “sharing the Messiah’s sovereign, redeeming rule over the whole creation” (from his article, “Are We Really Glorified Now?”). And when it comes to your work, that hope of glory provides—in the words of the hymn—“strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” Goodbye, blahs!
Strength for Today
In your work, if you are in Christ, God has put you in charge of a unique little sector of his creation. Genesis 1 makes it clear that we humans were created to partner with God in ruling his earth. And now, because Jesus has been glorified—put in charge—you as a member of his body have received your share of that oversight.
Your areas of rule, no matter how small, are all part of God’s vast estate. What might you be in charge of? Begin with the very instrument that allows you to work. You are “to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable” (I Thess. 4:4). You are to rule your tongue and eyes and hands for Christ and his Kingdom.
Beyond your own body, your work puts you in charge of a certain domain of influence. Maybe you sweep floors and empty trash cans in an elementary school. Or you may serve meals in a restaurant. Or supervise a battalion of firefighters. Or pilot a passenger jet. Or write newspaper articles. Whatever the piece of creation under your care, it belongs to Jesus. As Abraham Kuyper put it: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”
The sphere entrusted to you takes in the relationships with those in your work circle. How will your presence change the atmosphere in the give-and-take of working together? What “nobody” needs an understanding, listening ear? How will you respond when a coworker makes a costly mistake? Here, being in charge means ruling your own actions and reactions in KIngdom-reflecting ways.
The snag for so many of us is that we have been conditioned to think of our work as “secular,” thus having little or nothing to do with God’s eternal agenda. A car tire detached from its wheel cannot carry out its purpose. Your work separated from the hope of glory will never realize God’s aim for it. Any job, with no connection to God’s long-range plan, becomes meaningless. Blah.
But once you see that even now, because of your union with the glorified Christ, God has put you in charge of a bit of his property, you will tap into motivating new strength for your work today.
Bright Hope for Tomorrow
Of course, our future glorification will bring far more. Jesus told his parables to illustrate, by using present-earth pictures, what life will be like in his fully-realized Kingdom.
In one parable, a master leaves bags of gold with his servants—five bags, two bags, and one bag. Two servants faithfully used that which had been entrusted into their care. And what was their reward? “I will,” says the master, “put you in charge of many things” (Matt. 25:21). Those servants can look forward to being glorified—put in charge.
So not only does our present sharing in Christ’s glorification give strength for today’s work, but our promised part in that future Kingdom glorification also gives us “bright hope” for tomorrow’s work as well.
What work has God put into your hand to do? It may seem “little” (as the master in the parable described the bags of gold entrusted to his servants). But what if you were to think of your work responsibilities today as an apprenticeship for being “glorified,” for being put in charge of something more substantial in the age to come?
One of Wright’s students, Haley Goranson Jacob, sums it up beautifully in the final paragraph of her book, Conformed to the Image of His Son: Reconsidering Paul’s Theology of Glory in Romans:
“The goal of salvation is believers’ conformity to the Son of God—their participation in his rule over creation as God’s eschatological family and as renewed humanity—but only and always with the purpose of extending God’s hand of mercy, love, and care to his wider creation. This was humanity’s job from the beginning; it will be the believers’ responsibility and honor in the future; it is God’s purpose in calling his people in the present.”
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