The latest employment figures show 81% of men in their prime, ages 25-54, are fully employed, compared to 95% in 1969. Wages for that group have dropped 27% since ‘69.*
Jobs will likely be the number one campaign issue for both parties this fall and the next. Jobs are on candidates minds because they are foremost on OURS. Do you think God cares about this area where we spend more of our waking hours than in any other endeavor?
If He cares about lilies and sparrows (Matthew 6:25-32), then He cares about your work…or lack of. But how many believe that?
Dennis Bakke was CEO of the 40,000 employee AES Energy. When he visited their plant in Monaca, PA, he found that shift workers, often right out of high school, in their first two weeks on the job, would circle the date that they could retire. That’s the same thing prisoners do of their release dates, he exclaimed. Is this how God wants us to think about our work?**
Many of us have a distorted “God concept.” How we think about God is all whacked out from our troubled upbringing, our tormented past, or distortions we’ve been taught. What we think of God must come from how He reveals Himself in the Bible.
We read in Psalm 37:4 He wants to give us the desires of our heart IF we first delight in Him” (Psalm 37:4).
But what does it mean to delight in Him”? We make His desires our desires. We first seek His plans, purposes and priorities for our lives. Then lots of other more mundane and material pleasures will be given to us as well (Matthew 6:33).
The National Marriage Project sadly reports that men out of work exhibit many destructive habits. They commit more crimes, sire more children out of wedlock, do less housework, and retreat from family life far more than working men.*
Even though Presidents will make promises, there are many things government can’t do. They can’t provide the inner power to help a person get up and go to work every day or stay drug and alcohol free, two of the biggest causes of joblessness.
But Jesus can. That’s why I’m so excited about conversation and prayer that’s happening among local leaders and churches called “The Jobs & Mentoring initiative.” Contact our church for details.
More reason for excitement: God’s desires FOR you are hard-wired into His design OF you; how He made you. What are you good at? What gets you out of bed in the morning and is on your mind last thing at night? There is often some way you can turn that into a job. When you delight in your work, God delights in you, because He loves you.
This is a win, win, win scenario.
(*“The Slow Disappearance of the American Working Man,” by Mike Dorning, Bloomberg Business Week 8/25/11 on Yahoonews.com 8/27/11. **NY Times and Wall St Journal bestseller Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job, PVG, 2005).
