City Life Starter

I. The Word: Ecclesiastes 9:10

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”

II. Study Questions

1. Are you just going through the motions at work?

2. Have you given up on your job because it is not ultimately what
you want to do for a living?

3. Are you doing your job with all your heart and all your might?

There are a lot of distractions that can lead people away from their God-given callings. Some examples are the desire for more money, a more prestigious job, or they are not “passionate” about the work they are currently doing. All of these can become a distraction because they take us away from doing the work the Lord has currently put in front of us.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossian Christians, “Do your work with all your heart, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance.” Colossians 3:23.

About a thousand years before, Solomon wrote, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might . . . .” Ecclesiastes 9:10. There is a remarkable consistency between what Paul and Solomon say to do with regard to our work.

“Do your work . . . ” and “whatever your hand finds to do . . .” are commands that make no distinction as to the type of work one does. In other words, no work is too insignificant or unimportant to be done with all one’s heart.

Also, there is nothing in either verse that suggests the necessity of loving one’s work as a precondition to working hard. It’s not that loving one’s job is unimportant; it’s just that obedience to God is more important and passion is more often the result, not the cause, of hard work.

It’s similar to marriage. The Lord commands Christians to love their spouse. The love that is commanded is a verb, an action, not an emotion; but the act of loving regenerates the emotion. Obedience comes before emotion.

So many people are discontent in their job because they think their job is unimportant or insignificant. They don’t put their heart into what they do, and as a result, they never experience passion in their job. If the job is their ultimate calling, they will never know it, and if it isn’t their ultimate calling they are left to only endure until something better comes along.

Some years ago I had a job for which I thought I was overqualified. It was a secretarial job for a doctor. It was not the job I had envisioned doing someday when I was in college. I thought it was just a temporary job until I found the job I really wanted, which made it even more difficult to go to work every day.

But instead of just going through the motions, I started praying about my job and the people I worked with, and I began to see more value in my work. I decided to do the best job I could do and to be a positive influence with others at work. My boss, a doctor, must have noticed because he told me I was the best secretary he had ever had and he felt like he finally had the right team in place and he began to entrust me with more and more responsibility.

As it turned the doctor I worked for was the doctor for a former United States President. I did not know this at the time I took the job, but as a result of the doctor trusting me, I got to talk with and help this former president and his wife on a number of occasions. It is still some of the fondest memories I have of working, and it happened in a job I would never have chosen for myself. But it happened because I was obedient and did the work Lord put in front of me with all my heart.