Article January 5, 2015 Issue

Useful employment

Mary Alice Rose

Reprinted from The Christian Science Monitor.

Doesn’t everyone want to feel useful, to have a sense of purpose? The press routinely reports that extreme behavior by individuals—involving crime, suicide, terrorism—is often fueled by a feeling of uselessness and frustrated ambition.

I’ve always been grateful for what the Bible teaches about productive activity. The overarching theme in the Scriptures is that any task, no matter how humble or how grand, if done honestly and for the glory of God, good, is worthwhile and brings blessings not only to the worker but also to those whose lives the worker touches.

Moses meekly tended sheep, which led him to a holy encounter with God on Mount Horeb and prepared him to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. Joseph brought the same sacred devotion to his work as a slave as he did to serving as Egypt’s “minister of agriculture.” Jesus privately washed the disciples’ feet before his public victory over death. (See Exodus 3, Genesis 39 and 47, and John 13, respectively.)