When Work Hurts
On March 12, 1893, Charles Spurgeon—the English “Prince of Preachers”—presented a sermon on “Thorns and Thistles.” His text: Genesis 3:18.
“You go out into the wide world of trade and business, and I think you find that thorns also and thistles does it bring forth to you. You do not have a week’s dealing, a week’s work, a week’s going to and fro in this world without getting a pricking thorn here and there.”
No, literal spiky weeds don’t infest today’s offices and workplaces. But those thorns and thistles of Genesis 3 stand for all the pressures—the hurts, reversals, disappointments, breakdowns, and pressures—that make up so much of 21st-century working life.
For Christians in the work world, both the Fall and our Redemption bring uncomfortable pressures. The Fall? Since Genesis 3, our work presses us up against those figurative thorns and thistles. How does our Redemption lead to pressure? A Christian in the work world, if surrounded by unbelievers, can expect misunderstanding, opposition, or outright mistreatment.
But the presence of pressure does not signal the absence of God Just as an auto manufacturer runs its cars and trucks over suspension-pounding proving grounds, God leads believers through difficult terrain—much of which involves our work. As Eugene Peterson puts it in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, “Most of us spend a lot of time at work. This means that our Christian identity is being formed much of the time under uncongenial if not downright hostile conditions.”
He continues, “I’m prepared to contend that the primary location for spiritual formation is the workplace.” Why not “a” primary location? Why does he call it “the” primary location for spiritual formation? Some might argue that sermons or small groups are “the” primary incubators for godly growth. I suspect, though, that Peterson is recalling that the consequences of sin first fell on good, God-assigned work. And those consequences landed largely as trouble, toil, sweat, and painful labor.
On the Richter scale of workplace stresses, those of Joseph registered far higher than what most of us will ever endure on the job. The work assigned by Jacob, his Dad, made him the target of his brothers and led to his being sold to traders and re-sold as a slave. During his first job in Egypt, he experienced sexual harassment, a false charge, and a prison sentence. Yet both in his role as household manager and in the jail job, we read that “the Lord was with him” (Gen. 39:3, 21). And, in the end, Joseph could tell his brothers, “God intended it for good” (Gen. 50:20).
In Loving Monday, John Beckett, chairman of the Ohio-based R. W. Beckett Corporation, writes: “There has been no shortage of trials in my own business career. . . .Over the years, we’ve encountered major industrial accidents, employee problems, product liability issues and financial pressures. . . .Though we have often had difficulty seeing God’s purposes in the midst of the problems we’ve faced over the years, hindsight has revealed his prevailing design and intentions. . . .Difficulty is God’s instrument.”
Beckett is echoing C. S. Lewis’ statement, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.”
Closeness with God and trouble at work may seem incompatible. But Peter connects them directly. Even undeserved suffering in the workplace, he says, can be experienced in a God-conscious and God-commended way (I Pet. 2:18-25). Bearing up under the pain of working for a nasty, unfair boss is walking in a path of suffering not unlike that followed by Jesus. Peter goes on to say, “whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God” (I Pet. 4:1-2).
In Christ, workplace hardships can become sanctifying. James puts it into perspective: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).
Perseverance. Maturity. Completeness. God is in all of these. And he is in the pressures that produce such qualities. This turns those pressures into invitations to keep on working with and for him, even though thorn-and-thistle patches scratch and pierce and sting.
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Chapter 15 expands on how God uses our workplace struggles in the process of forming Christ in us.
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