Another Labor Day is in the rearview mirror. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers.” It is to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.
Work has been a part of my life since I was a grade-school boy working after school and on Saturdays at my Dad’s grocery store. My Dad taught me a work ethic by example and by command. He had me standing on a coke crate in the meat market wrapping hamburger, throwing the empty cardboard boxes into the trailer out back, washing potatoes when one would become rotten in a ten-pound bag, and stocking shelves with flour and corn meal.
He also had a cattle ranch. So he put me on a tractor to bushhog a large field early one morning and didn’t come back until lunch time. We herded cattle with horses, doctored them, separated them, and loaded some on the trailer to be sold. We built fence together digging dozens of holes for fence posts in this hard, rocky Arkansas ground. We would dig a few inches, fill it with water and let it soak overnight, then dig some more the next day.
Those days prepared me in many ways for the past fifty years since I surrendered to God’s call to the preaching ministry. This led to work with children and students, as a pastor and a seminar leader, as well as work on educational goals.
Here’s three Bible verses on work that have guided me. “Here is what I have seen to be good: It is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life God has given him, because that is his reward” (Ecclesiastes 5.18). “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 (Corinthians 10.31). “Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor over it in vain” (Psalm 127.1a).
God created us to work. In creation order, God gave man work to do even in a perfect garden before man sinned. So work for the Lord and give Him all the glory.
Come worship in-person this Sunday at 9:00am (Traditional Worship) or 10:30am (Contemporary Worship). Bible Classes meet at the same hours. www.BalboaBaptist.Church.