The illustration was created years ago by Covenanter Birger Sponberg for Covenant Pressmen, then the support organization for Covenant Publications. It has our Lord in Joseph's carpenter shop, where he was early schooled in that trade.Even though his calling later took him from that shop, he never ceased working, applying the disciplines he learned from Joseph to the greater mission the heavenly Father had in mind for him. "My Father is working still" he said, and I am working" (John 5:17).
I have been rejoicing this morning in the work God keeps giving me to do, in retirement no less that in what for want of a better term many call their "working years." Ought Christians ever be done working, called and empowered by God to bring praise to his name?
Relief from what often were oppressive schedules demanding more than their share of our time and attention are now welcome, to be sure. Yet to drop creative labor entirely after spending one's whole working life pursuing it is surely not what our Father intends for us. So now, whether in part-time visitation ministry at Salem, disciplined labor on this website wherever I happen to be, continuing contacts and correspondence with colleagues and friends both new and old, as well as spending quality time with extended family, I am blessed to be a working servant of God.
"My yoke is easy," Jesus said, "and my burden is light." Because that is true taking it upon me day after day is not oppressive. It is in fact richly rewarding, for nothing done in God's name ever returns void. It does in fact, as he promised it would, accomplish what it is sent out to do--not always by timetables we set for ourselves but in his own good time and way nonetheless. It is that confidence in him which fuels my labors, even while releasing my spirit from the awful burden of assuming that I am responsible for more than I am.
Is that not every Christian's calling, to keep working for God with both discipline and a continuing sense of urgency, trusting him to honor that work and the yearning it represents to live and remain in him? The day will surely come when time for our working will be no more, but until then keep working with joy for God, and after all your work is finally done trust the results to him as well.
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