Work In Vain - TEN Years of Reflectionary (Hebrews 4)

First posted Friday, September 4, 2009

 

I remember times when I worked hard on difficult, energy-draining projects. There were hot summer days helping a farmer down the road bale hay. There were times when it was just me, and the farmer's son. I would be up stacking hay in the loft, and he would be loading the bales onto an elevator. I got paid for this, but I will admit, I hated the work! Back in those days, I often would get asked to help during hay-baling season. Dexter was still a farming community, and a lot of us were familiar with hard work!

There were other times, though, like the Summer of 1980, during a record-breaking heat-wave in Texas. I and some other men re-roofed the Shamrock Advent Christian Church. Except for some of the best cooking I have ever known in my life, none of us got paid to do this work. Yet, I loved it. My memories are positive. It was like play.

What was the difference?

It was all about motive. In one case, I was working for money. In another, I was serving others, and along the way having some excellent fellowship with a group of godly men.

The writer of Hebrews talks about our promised "rest," our reward for serving God. There will come a time when the curse is defeated, the curse that doomed us to work and toil throughout life, subject to thorns and thistles, disease and death. But one day, God promises, we will rest from our labors.

Now, we could just rest on Sunday, or Saturday (if you are a 7th Day-er). But how many of us actually "rest" on our Sabbath?

In Hebrews, this rest is treated as though it has already come. What is meant?

So there must be a Sabbath's rest still waiting for the people of God, and whoever finds this rest has rested from his own labors as God once rested from His.

Our final reward, our eternal rest, is still in the future, without doubt. But here we seem to be able to claim the rest today. How can we do this, when there is obviously work to be done? Who will mow the grass? Who will pay the bills?

I think it's all about attitude. Some people make a big deal out of work. They make noise while they're "working." They comment about it after "Whew! I'm whipped! Been canning beans all evening!"

Or, "I troubleshot 16,000 lines of code. Took six hours."

Or, "I work myself to the bone and no one lifts a finger to help me!"

We keep going back to work . . . to works. How we crave, and long, for attention!

Have you noticed how much little children want you to notice what they have done, or are doing? It is because children of all sorts are activity-focused. They are works-oriented. They only know activity. But adults should move beyond that! Their purview should shift from drawing attention to themselves, to focusing more on others. Becoming more Christlike . . . not more busy!

So yes, it is possible to rest, even while you are working yourself to the bone! You can work because you are doing it for the right reasons. You do not care who gets the credit. And if your bones begin to protrude through their protective layer of skin, smile about it! God is good and He will take care of you! But if you have to complain about how hard you have worked, or brag about it, then you have ruined it for yourself and everybody! You just turned an act of cheerful giving (in which you actually did feel refreshed afterward), into work. You have stepped back into the curse.

Once I was working with an older male relative. Over time he began to get critical of me. He pointed out things for me to do, that I was already doing. He found little nit-picky things to comment on - suggesting changes that he wasn't even doing himself. Little arguments erupted.

I had gone into the work project feeling cheerful, eager for the time and fellowship with this trusted elder. And while we were getting along, it was not work at all. It was fellowship. Worship. Rest.

Finally I said - "I love work when it's fun. But when it ceases to be fun I hate it."

"Baloney!" was his terse response.

This person was stuck in the paradigm that work has to be work. It has to be laborious. It isn't supposed to be fun. If you are having fun, you aren't working.

Baloney, indeed!

"Today" (Hebrews 2-4) - 10 Years of Reflectionary

Originally published Thursday, September 3, 2009

Many people speak of our eternal reward as being in the form of a place, namely, "Heaven."

Others describe that place with a little more Scriptural accuracy: "The Kingdom of God," (or "The Kingdom of Heaven.")

We are conditioned to believe the world is a bad place. How many people have you heard moan about a new child being born, into this "awful world"? We have difficulty accepting what God said about Creation, that it is "good." But if God says it is good, we must accept it at face value. Wouldn't all of our relationships and lives be much better, if we could only believe God when He says that the world is "good"?

But we have concluded that the world is a bad place. This has driven our emphasis on there being a better place for us. We cannot take the world as it is - we do not see the beauty in it, so we build our lives around building nice places (homes) for our families. We put ourselves in different roles, and wear different disguises depending on what we are doing. So we go to work. We go to a store. We go to a park. And we dress and act the part. We really are not being ourselves.

And we have developed a religious system that mirrors this emphasis on place. We must have our church buildings, so we can go to church. And the process of going to Church aligns closely with the assumption that one day we will go to Heaven, or to the Kingdom of God.

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God must be setting aside another day, namely the "today" He mentions . . .

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But if you look closely, you will see that God is more interested in a time, or a state of being, than He is of a place. God is, after all, everywhere. We cannot ever go to where He is, for we are already there!

The temple of the Old Testament was stressed, due to our need to be able to go into a place to do various things. God segmented our lives, for we were but children. But in the New Testament, being made new in Christ, we are the Temple. The Church is everywhere, and we do not need to go anywhere to be in it!

God taught us a radical concept, one that no other world religion can comprehend: that the Kingdom of God is here. It's now. And we are it!

God uses the word "today" a lot. Think about all it's uses throughout Scripture: "Truly truly, I say unto you today . . . " is a good starting point. God exists today. He's right here, right now. All the time.

This is the point - our reward is not necessarily in some far off place. Let's leave that for the other religions. God promises us constant, eternal now. Every day is today, and today never ends. This is why Christ told us not to worry about tomorrow. If you are enjoying the here and now, then you've got it.

I have observed that the older people get, the more they just focus on what they're doing right now. They learn to appreciate the company in front of them right now. They move more and more towards activities they enjoy. They know the magic of getting into a "zone", focusing on something they enjoy. They prefer activities in which time seems to stand still. They learn more and more to live for the moment.

Stop thinking about what will happen when you die, where you will go, etc. Isn't even the concept of "go to Heaven when you die," really the same as worrying about tomorrow?

Just enjoy this moment. Appreciate today. God has promised that, for those that believe and accept it, today will never end.

10 Years of Reflectionary: Hebrews 1 & 2

Originally published on August 22, 2009

How Did it Start For You?

Let me preface these comments with a hope that they do not apply to you! I'm talking about the tendency of society to drift into disorder and chaos, if left alone. Is this not what "Science" has concluded?

I just completed the book, The Road, by Cormac McArthy. It describes a world with no hope, no authority, no order. Gradually, the people lost their sense of humanity and compassion. They became more like animals. It's sad to think of the human race with such intelligence combined with so little moral bearing. We're too smart for our own good. If we thought we would get away with it, we would try anything.

Enter God's plan. God knew this, about us. There's a fine balance between intelligence, free-will, nobility, and purity, that God wants to strike with us. With intelligence comes judgment, the ability to choose right from wrong. The intelligence brings self-awareness. The smarter we are, the more aware of ourselves we become. There is a sickening juxtaposition of smarts and wisdom, where they paradoxically end up at odds with each other. We are self-aware, and it makes us self-ish. We feed our minds, and it feeds our egos.

So we had the severity of the Law in the Old Testament. We had rigid rules, to drive us back into growing up into spiritual beings . . . people that could love unselfishly. God's amazing plan would have us be intelligent and loving. This is a delicate blend that only an all-powerful and all-wise God could pull off!

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Now, I look about myself today: Sexual looseness. Divorce. Hideous crimes on TV. Lying politicians. Kids that have seen it all on their cell phones, Cable TV, and the Internet. Babies born out of wedlock. Filthy language is now the norm. Basic courtesies and etiquette are out the door. People that have not learned to sharpen one another. Harmful, nervous habits that eat away at people souls. Self-mutilation.

Interestingly, the decay in society today goes back to multiples of decisions made by individuals, that harm themselves first! These decisions harm others, when they see that someone they trust can make a bad choice, and nothing bad happens. There is an allure to wrongdoing that captivates humanity. We will do anything, if we can get away with it!

We have an unchecked, uncontrolled, un-stopped decline into a world we never would have dreamed could result, in our lifetimes!

Churches that fold. Believers that are alienated from one another. People that once were like family, now focused more on possessions, money, and being "cool." Seeking the upper hand over others. A descent into chaos, masked by people just getting for themselves, "what I've got coming to me." Children with more steps and halves than they can keep track of! A disintegration of family; true family; real family; the best form of family.

So, how did your world get to where it is today? Did it start with you?

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I remember a divorce that happened years ago. It happened to a young ministerial couple that was very effective with youth, and full of promise. It was a sad, devastating situation. It started with the young wife having an affair. The divorce was ugly. The two respective families separated totally, and years later still have not reconciled.

The families had to accept it and "move on." The story had a tragic outcome, but it did not stop others from wanting to follow that example. Other family members and friends got divorced. Unmarried people began living together. Children were born out of wedlock. A rippling effect spread, and broke up families and churches.

I go back to that one divorce, that a young couple got away with. It became easier for the rest of us to push the boundaries.

Therefore we must pay more attention to what we have been told, or we could drift off course.

The writer of Hebrews knew what he was talking about. The statement is powerful, and to me prophetic. It's a warning, a prediction, a sage piece of advice.

We don't lurch, suddenly, ninety degrees from our walk with Christ. We drift.

"Pay more attention to what we have been told." Friends, you've got to read your Bible, and discuss it!

I am in the final year of a decade-long Bible study. During that decade I experienced my own divorce. I would not recommend it to anybody. These other divorces only paved the way for other marriages like mine. It gets easier. We ignore what the Bible says about divorce and marriage.

We drift, and we hardly notice it.

I don't know how we take back the territory we lost in the culture war. It's hard to imagine us drifting back into righteousness. I fear that the only thing that works is to be shocked back into it. We must hold the Word of God before the world, like a light.

But first of all, by all means, stop the drift!

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This blog post got a response. Tim wrote, on September 4th