October 18, 2006 9:16 AM
Elisabeth Elliot on work
By the way, if you've subscribed to Elisabeth Elliot, would you please leave a comment and let me know? If you'd like to subscribe - and get her wisdom in your Inbox daily, as I do - you'll find a link at the bottom.
But here's another one I couldn't resist sharing - especially for mothers:
The Gift of Work
The principal cause of boredom is the hatred of work. People are trained from childhood to hate it. Parents often feel guilty about making children do anything but the merest gestures toward work. Perhaps the children are required to make their beds and, in a feeble and half-hearted fashion, tidy up their rooms once a month or so. But take full responsibility to clear the table, load the dishwasher, scrub the pots, wipe the counters? How many have the courage to ask this of a ten-year-old? It would be too much to ask of many ten-year-olds because parents have seriously asked nothing of them when they were two or three. Children quickly pick up the parents' negative attitudes toward work and think of it as something most sedulously to be avoided.Our Lord and Savior worked. There is little doubt that He served in the carpenter shop under the instruction of His earthly father Joseph, putting in long hours, learning skill, care, responsibility, and above all, the glory of work as a gift to glorify His heavenly Father. He did always those things that please the Father. Later He chose almost all His disciples from those who labored with their hands. Even the apostle Paul, a man of brilliant intellect, made tents.
Booker T. Washington, an African-American who grew up in the South when members of his race were expected to do the hardest and dirtiest jobs, learned his greatest lesson from the example of a Christian woman. A New Englander, the founder of the Hampton Institute, she herself washed the windows the day before school started, so it would be nice for those children who had been born slaves.
Is work a necessary evil, even a curse? A Christian who spent many years in Soviet work camps, learning to know work at its most brutal, its most degrading and dehumanizing, testified that he took pride in it, did the best he could, worked to the limit of his strength each day. Why? Because he saw it as a gift from God, coming to him from the hand of God, the very will of God for him. He remembered that Jesus did not make benches and roofbeams and plow handles by means of miracles, but by means of saw, axe, and adze.
Wouldn't it make an astounding difference, not only in the quality of the work we do (in office, schoolroom, factory, kitchen, or backyard), but also in our satisfaction, even our joy, if we recognized God's gracious gift in every single task, from making a bed or bathing a baby to drawing a blueprint or selling a computer? If our children saw us doing "heartily as unto the Lord" all the work we do, they would learn true happiness. Instead of feeling that they must be allowed to do what they like, they would learn to like what they do.
St. Ignatius Loyola prayed, "Teach us, Good Lord, to labor and to ask for no reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will." As I learn to pray that prayer, I find that there are many more rewards that come along as fringe benefits. As we make an offering of our work, we find the truth of a principle Jesus taught: Fulfillment is not a goal to achieve, but always the by-product of sacrifice.
Subscribe to Elisabeth Elliot's daily devotions here.
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Comments
I subscribed a while ago when I saw you posting her devotionals. I've really enjoyed the bits of her wisdom each morning!
I linked to your Mommy Manual book the other day in a post of mine - I'm re-reading it and something really stuck out to me this time that didn't the first time I speed-read through it. ;)
Posted by: Laura | October 18, 2006 11:17 AM
Yes, I've been a subscriber for over a year. I love it
Posted by: Shannon @ Rocks in my Dryer | October 18, 2006 11:53 AM
Yes, I subscribed awhile ago due to your recommendations of it. I have a few of her books and used to listen to her on the radio years ago when I was in college. I miss listening to her so her devotional emails are the next best thing. What little I've learned about being a godly woman I've learned through her. Now I'm learning to be a godly mommy through you!
p.s. When I read the devotional in my email box, I wondered if you would write about it on your blog...how I laughed when I clicked over to your site to see it front and center!
-Laurie
Posted by: Laurie | October 18, 2006 2:36 PM
If you're looking for more information about the value of work, Colson's "Why America Doesn't Work" is great. He also talks about how few prisoners work and why, that was very interesting (and sad.) There are 2 used copies left at amazon:
Posted by: Elizabeth B | October 18, 2006 2:40 PM
Yes I subscribed when you last recommended the devotionals...and like Laurie when I read the one about work, I thought, that's a good one, wonder if it will make MommyLife..............
Posted by: Sue | October 19, 2006 11:43 AM
I subscribed and love getting the daily devotionals!:)
The joy and strength devotional is great too!
Have a blessed day!
Posted by: Kelley | October 20, 2006 12:39 PM
