Similarly, we do this with labor when we divide headwork from handwork, and then attribute huge value to headwork and little or nothing to handwork. Sometimes we use economic criteria (which job earns the most?), and sometimes we use spiritual criteria (ministry is spiritual, everything else is secular).

Using biblical criteria I want to show why this divide-and devalue assessment of work is wrong, and I also want to demonstrate the beauty and dignity of manual labor.

The Source of Manual Labor
God was the first manual laborer. He created all the materials in the world and worked them into shape. He made Adam from dust, and Eve from a male rib. He made things out of things.

Also, the first job God created was gardening, into which He called His first “employees.” Later, He called Bezalel and gifted him with all the necessary manual skills to build the tabernacle. Indeed, Bezalel is the first person Scripture records as being filled with the Spirit, and this filling was to help him build the Tabernacle (Ex. 31:3). God called and equipped Bezalel, no less than He called Moses.

The Son of God was probably a carpenter for most of His early life, a job to which He was divinely called and for which He was divinely gifted. Matthew Henry said: “Skill in common arts and employments is the gift of God; from him are derived both the faculty and the improvement of the faculty.”

The Range of Manual Labor
We find a variety of God-given gifts at the tabernacle building site: woodworking, stone-cutting, jewel-setting, needle-working, etc.

Do we not see God’s amazing creativity in the vast range of creative gifts He has distributed throughout the world? When we watch a farmer plough his fields, a builder erect a wall, a homemaker arrange and adorn her house, we see the vast range of God’s creative abilities scattered throughout His creation. John Calvin said, “All the arts come from God and are to be respected as divine inventions.”

The Necessity of Manual Labor
Moses was a knowledge worker, but not a manual worker. God gave him the ability to teach and write, but he needed help with practical matters of construction. For God’s purposes to be accomplished, for His character to be revealed through the tabernacle, He also needed those who could work with their hands (which, as Exodus 35:31 makes clear, also involved a lot of headwork).

If God has gifted you, it’s because He has ordained needs for you to meet with your gifts. If He’s given you Bezalel-type gifts, don’t try to be a Moses. And if you have Moses-type gifts, encourage and value the Bezalels. The Church and the world both need all of God’s gifts.

The Beauty of Manual Labor
In the Tabernacle, we see God’s regard and concern for beauty. We see it in the design, the fascinating furniture and ornaments, and the value and variety of the materials. Although a large part of the Tabernacle’s design was about daily practicalities, some of the design choices were simply about beauty.

Let’s image our God by cultivating an appreciation for beauty and by displaying it in our daily lives and callings. Ask: “How can I make this home or yard more beautiful, this factory more beautiful, this product more beautiful? How can I reveal and display the beauty of God in my daily life and calling?” Our beautiful God loves beauty.

The Aim of Manual Labor
The aim of handwork and headwork, is the glory of God. Moses’ preaching and Bezalel’s cutting, nailing, and lifting resulted in God being better known.

But, you may ask, “How do I glorify God in a factory, in a building site, in the kitchen?” We do so by mirroring God through diligence, integrity, honesty, and, above all, by aiming at excellence in all that we do.

That’s why, like Bezalel, we all need the filling of the Holy Spirit in whatever we do. Work is difficult, excellent work is even more difficult, and doing God-glorifying excellent work is most difficult of all. But if we do our God-given work, with God’s help, and for God’s glory, we are worshipping Him in, through, and with our work.

And that’s beautiful!

First published in the November 2012 edition of Tabletalk. Subscribe here for $23 per year. 

• Angry Birds, the best-selling Apple App was software maker Rovio’s 52nd attempt at successful software in 8 almost-bankrupt years.
• James Dyson failed in 5,126 prototypes before perfecting his revolutionary vacuum cleaner.
• Before Oprah was Oprah, before Jobs was Jobs, they were labeled as misguided dreamers rather than future captains of industry.
• WD40 lubricant got its name because the first 39 experiments failed. WD-40 literally stands for “Water Displacement–40th Attempt.

The basic difference between successful people and the rest of us is that they’ve learned to fail well. They humbly embrace their mistakes, use them as opportunities to learn, and persevere until each shot got them nearer the bullseye.

• Apple founder Steve Jobs ascribes his present success to reevaluating his life after three setbacks: dropping out of college, being fired from the company he founded, and being diagnosed with cancer.
• J.K. Rowling lost her marriage, parental approval and most of her money. But then, with nothing left to lose, she turned to her first love – writing. “Failure stripped away everything inessential,” she said. “It taught me things about myself I could have learned no other way.”
• Michael Jordan said: “I have failed over and over and over again, and that is why I succeed.
• The American chess master Bruce Pandolfini, who trains many young chess players, said: “At the beginning, you lose – a lot. The kids who are going to succeed are the ones who learn to stand it. A lot of young players find losing so devastating they never adapt, never learn to metabolize that failure and to not take it personally. But good players lose and then put the game behind them emotionally.”
• Philip Schultz wrote a book of poems about his writing failures. Entitled, Failure, it won a Pulitzer prize!

If we have learned to fail well:

• We will have realistic expectations of ourselves and our work.
• We will not soar too high on success, and we will not sink too deeply upon a setback.
• We will not resent or envy the “success” of others, nor will we get caught up in trying to imitate them.
• We will diligently and patiently labour in our vocations, gradually developing our talents and skills for God’s glory and the good of others.
• We will confess our failures, seek our Lord’s forgiveness, and pray for His re-directing guidance.
• We will emerge from our failures humbler and weaker, but wiser and happier too.
• Eventually we will see how God can transform our ugly failures into something profitable and even beautiful.

As the Apostle Peter might say: “Sometimes, failure is the best thing that can happen to us.”

• Idolatry: the worship of work
• Greed: pursuit of material rewards
• Escapism: avoidance of less pleasant responsibilities
• Identity: defining oneself by one’s work
• Unbelief: distrusting God’s provision

Another reason crossed my mind today: enjoyment. And I think that’s often what drives many workaholic pastors – our work is so enjoyable, It’s not that way all the time, of course, but often we can find so much satisfaction and happiness in what we do.

An easy problem
It’s hard to be a workaholic if we hate our work. But if we love it, if we bounce out of bed most mornings, if we can’t wait to get into the study and then into the pulpit to share what we have studied, if we enjoy being with the sheep God has blessed us with, if we see God’s Word converting sinners and edifying God’s people, then overwork is going to be a much more easy problem to fall into.

In fact, sometimes the ministry is so enjoyable that it hardly feels like work at all.

So that’s OK then. If you love your work, and it’s good work like the ministry, then it doesn’t matter how many hours a week you put into it, does it? Enjoyment makes everything just fine!

No, it doesn’t. God gives us many good things to enjoy in this life – friends, hobbies, sport, music, etc. – but we must exercise self-denial lest these good and legitimate things become too prominent and too important in our lives.

Difficult self-denial
The same goes for our work, even for ministry work. At times self-denial will require us to clock off early and play football with the kids, or take a day off to help our wife paint the kitchen. It may not be so enjoyable as the books, but sometimes tidying the garage or washing the car is more pleasing to God than perfecting the next sermon.

If the main driver of our ministries is personal pleasure, to the detriment of our bodies, family relationships, and other responsibilities, are we that much different from the drug-addict?

Hello, my name’s David, and I’m a recovering workaholic. And I say that with no sense of pride, even though workaholism is one of our society’s most “respected”, even admirable sins. In fact, perhaps one of the places it is most admired is in the church, and especially in the Christian ministry.

Few Christians put this sin in the same category as homosexuality or murder. Yet, workaholism has probably destroyed more souls, especially in Christian homes, and maybe especially in pastors’ and missionaries’ homes, than either of these sins. Many pastors spend their days denouncing this -ism, that –ism, and every other -ism, while seeking and accepting plaudits for their workaholism.

Diagnosis
So how do you know if you are a workaholic? Workaholics Anonymous – yes, there is such an organization – provides 20 questions. They include:

• Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else?
• Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On vacation?
• Do you believe that it is okay to work long hours if you love what you are doing?
• Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else?
• Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?

Does that sound like someone you know? Your pastor? You?

Causes
Idolatry is at the root of a lot of workaholism. Many make “work” their functional god, and it can be a very satisfying one too. It doesn’t just take; it gives back too. It often rewards with money, position, power, prestige, and praise

Other workaholics are motivated by greed. The work may be unsatisfying but the money sure promises to make up for it.

For some it’s all about escaping less pleasant, less “glamorous” responsibilities. Far easier to be a frequent flier than change diapers; to speak at conferences than speak to your teenage son; to chair board meetings than comfort your lonely wife.

For some, work is a matter of identity; it’s what defines them. In the 18th century most obituaries focused on the character of the deceased and rarely mentioned occupation. 150 years later, most obituaries assess a person in connection with their occupation and achievements. Probably explains many early graves as well.

Many workaholics are unable to trust God with their jobs and finances, and end up relying on excessive hours rather than on their heavenly Father.

Effects
Like all –isms, this addiction is a destroyer. It destroys marriages, relationships with children, friendships, and usefulness in the church. It destroys happiness, it destroys bodies, and it destroys souls.

And yet this destroyer is so deceptive, so plausible: “I’m doing it for my family…I’m trying to get my kid through college…I’m serving God…”

And pastors, I know, there are unending stories in Christian literature about how many hours famous ministers and missionaries worked. What many of the biographies don’t tell you is that many of them died young or suffered long seasons of disease and burnout.

Cure
The cure begins with cold turkey; take a full week off work, yes a full week, in order to examine yourself in the light of God’s Word. Ask your family if they think you’ve got work in the right place. How is your relationship with God, your devotional time? Listen to your body; is it bearing up under the stress or is it beginning to break up as you wear out your machinery?

Confess workaholism to God, and He will forgive you. He forgives all addicts who repent and seek mercy in Christ. Trusting in the finished work of Christ will bring a new calm, peace, and perspective into your life.

Then, to prove that your repentance is genuine, plot a future containing these elements:

• Take every Sunday off work. If you are a pastor, designate any other day and stick to it. “Six days you shall labor” applies to pastors as well.
• Memorize Psalm 127v1-2, and believe it.
• Set a reasonable number of working hours per week (recent research shows a huge loss of productivity after 40 hours of work in a week).
• Do not answer email or make work-related phone calls on vacation.
• Schedule daily exercise and family time.
• Remember your created limits. So much of workaholism is a defiance of the physical limitations that God our creator has imposed upon us.
• Remember that the Lord has also put a curse on work. Knowing that fallen man would seek ultimate satisfaction in his work, rather than in Him, God built in “thorns and thistles and sweat” to drive man from work to Himself.
• Project yourself to your deathbed. A hospice nurse recently said that she has not yet cared for a man that did not regret how many hours he put into his work.

Conclusion
As for the rest of us, let’s not encourage workaholics by praising their addiction. Would you praise a drug addict or an alcoholic? Do them a favor, call them to repentance.

If it’s a pastor, remind him that not only is he sinning against God by harming himself and his family, he’s also providing a damaging role model for other men in the congregation.

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2006 © Timothy Stone. Image from BigStockPhoto.com
A few years ago I was sitting with an old Pastor who had labored faithfully in one congregation for decades and yet had seen little or no “growth” in his flock. I asked him if he ever got jealous when he saw other congregations growing and other ministers being used in the salvation of souls. “I used to,” he replied, “and I still long to be a blessing to precious souls. However I came to realize that while God’s work through me was important, God’s work in me was even more important.” I was puzzled and asked him to expand a bit. “Well, I have come to realize that God may have put me into the ministry primarily for my own sanctification.” This startling thought has often encouraged me in my low times. And it has kept a check on me in times of blessing too. The Christian Church has all too many examples of men who have focused on God’s working through them, to the neglect of God’s work in them. Fellow pastors and preachers, God has called you into the ministry not only to work through you but also (primarily?) to work in you. As you face another Sunday pastoring your flock, with all its challenges, frustrations, and disappointments, remember this memorable image painted by Dave Evans: “Work is God’s sandbox. He invites His children to play together in ways that help to grow them into who they are to become.”

You can read Dave Evans excellent article on work here.