What are you doing?

Jun 10

Written By Zach Bennett

(Post 7 of 8)

“Tumble out of bed

And stumble to the kitchen

Pour myself a cup of ambition

And yawn and stretch and try to come to life”

Maybe you know the words to Dolly Parton's song about getting up and going to work 9 to 5, but even if you don't, you know what it means to get up and then….go to school, go to work… or maybe you just go play Xbox?

However you answer it, what are you doing?

Are you simply making money? Are you simply working for the weekend (please forgive one more 80's song reference)? Are you in a race with others regarding how much you gather and how awesome you make your life look? Are you simply trying to fund your children to get to college so that they can fund their kids to go to college?

Is it a transaction? Are you a serf in a modern-day Middle Ages where the corporate knights of the Western world build their castles and let us stay under the protection of their corporate success in the hope of ‘retirement?’

Does your work matter beyond the transaction?

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, we work because God works. In fact, our job is to finish what He started with this world (see Genesis 1). We continue his work of bringing order and beauty to this world and filling it with people who reflect his love, beauty, and integrity. This creation story shows God as an artist, an engineer, a teacher, and a parent, creating space for love, creativity, wonder, beauty, power, and majesty.

How is your work an expression of you? How does it make this world more orderly, beautiful, just, and hopeful?

How does it fill this world with people who reflect the characteristics of integrity, wonder, and beauty?

The historic notion of “calling” tells us that each person has a purpose beyond themselves for the good of the world. What we do is an expression, a response to whom we follow, and a gift of service to the one or ones we serve, a way that we have been sent to this world to leave it better off than how we found it.

What are you doing? For whom do you do it?

Answering this question will give you energy around your work, the urgency to move when you are not in the proper role, and the peace and perseverance to stay in a situation when it becomes difficult. It also answers the question: Whose money is it? Is it yours? Did you work harder than that person in central Africa who earns only $1 per day? Do you have a responsibility to people with low incomes in your community or globally with the money given to you for your work?