The 90/10 Problem

There are many things in this world that make me angry. There many things that should and often do incite a righteous indignation in me. However, there is nothing that makes me more irate than when my cats wake me up moments before my alarm is to go off. I’m serious. If WMDs were stored on my nightstand I tremble at how I might respond in the moment. There is many a morning that finds me still seething as I drive myself to work yearning for the morning that I can evict my feline aggressors and sleep until my heart’s content. I, like many people, find myself longing for the weekend. To do so on Friday is one thing, but when it’s Tuesday morning…

I find that this yearning for a weekend’s respite is hardly a remote behavior. I am surely not alone. I hear the desire from my coworkers and friends as well. ‘Only two more days.’ ‘Only six more hours.’

We spend 90% of our time wishing we were living in the other 10%.

Something is wrong with the way we are viewing work.

Before I go on I want to say a few things.

1     I understand that I speak from a position of privilege living in a society in which I even get days off. Still, I believe that we all need to reevaluate how we consider our vocations.

2     Part of the curse delivered to Adam and all his kind (us) ensures that our work will always be just that--- work.

With those caveats out of the way, let me continue.

Something is wrong with the way we are viewing work. We operate under the faulty assumption that if we could only get that job; if we could only win the lottery; if we could only marry that person who would allow us to stay home, then our lives would be infinitely better. Even the best of us spend many of our working hours fantasizing about what we’ll be doing come five o’clock Friday. If you are a bit more controlling like me, you make lists of what you’ll do when you get the time. Much of the time, I don’t even have anything in particular to do on the weekend yet still I yearn for it. Is this really the way that the Lord wants us to live? Constantly desiring some future event while despising the present? Creating idols out of weekends and time off as if they were the day of glory? Surely not.

As I was considering my own conflicted desires, I fell upon three ways we should change our views about work.

Vocation as service

We know that Paul tells his readers (specifically slaves and indentured servants) that “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Zealous believers throughout history have noted the value of manual labor and vocation as an opportunity to serve the Lord. If our focus is on the Lord, every act, every muscle we move, and every word we type can be a service rendered to the Lord. So often we are blinded to this by the stress of expectations or our own grumbling. One way we can alter our course in regards to work is to actively seek to serve the Lord with every action, every movement, and every thought.

Vocation as mission

Our identity as Christians is a bit of a misnomer. We are not simply humans who happen to follow Jesus. We do not add “Christian” to our identification and then progress as before, reaping paltry consolation from God. As new creations in Christ we are not only given new life, we are also given a new mission. The two are inexorably linked. There is no option in which the two are separate. If we are born again in Christ Jesus, we ARE on mission for Him.

Jesus, of course, made this evidently clear in His instructions to His disciples (of which we are included): “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

We know these words. We have memorized these words, but we all know that there are many days (the majority of days?) in which we consider our jobs to be a necessary evil removed from the scope of our Christian identity. However, how would we view our work differently if we truly took to heart Jesus’ command? If instead of just ‘making it through’ the workday we viewed our time at work as a limited opportunity to speak into the lives of those with whom we interact?

For a short period in my life I was able to have a job without the need for the finances it provided. (Please, stifle your groans for a moment). During this time, the sole reason for my employment was to influence my coworkers toward Christ. The two and a half months I worked at that McDonald’s, I knew what I was there for. I surely had days in which investing in my fellow workers was the last thing I wanted to do, but I knew why I was employed. In the years since, as the responsibilities and bills have mounted, I have occasionally returned to that time and the clarity in which I saw the situation.

If we truly believe that the Lord will provide for us, what is keeping us from embracing this clarity? If we truly saw our time at work as a limited resource and the time with our coworkers as slivers of eternity, how might it change the way we approach the days?

Vocation as practice

There is a discipline that comes with completing a task. There are moments in which we see clearly that we do not possess the necessary strength/wisdom/intelligence to complete our tasks. These moments of humility (should) drive us close to the Source of all gifts. In this way, vocation can be an opportunity to practice the faith we so often preach. The heat of the moment is when our faith is tested. It is under trial that the fruits of the Spirit will be manifested. In the ebb and flow of the workday we are met with innumerable opportunities to give in to anxiety and sin or, conversely, draw near to the Lord.

A man who knew the potential for such situations was Brother Lawrence, a 17^th century Carmelite monk (born Nicholas Herman). Early in his life, Brother Lawrence was stricken with doubt and uncertainty about his spiritual state. This uncertainty led him to enter a monastery. There he was often tasked with monotonous kitchen duty. Yet it was during this service that Brother Lawrence came to develop a deep and profound understanding of how to draw near to the Lord in all situations. 

He confidently spoke from personal conviction of the need to maintain an open dialogue with the Lord throughout the day. He learned that even the lowliest task had the potential to draw him closer to Christ. “Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do… We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of Him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before Him, who has given me the grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.”

Through a friend, he advised: “Whatever we do, even if we are reading the Word or praying, we should stop for a few minutes—as often as possible—to praise God from the depths of our hearts, to enjoy Him there in secret. Since we believe that God is always with us, no matter what we may be doing, why shouldn’t we stop for awhile to adore Him to praise Him, to petition Him to offer Him our hearts, and to thank Him?”

How might such an understanding of the nearness of God change our attitude at work? Perhaps we might cease to view the workday as oppression to endure and instead view it as the means by which we might commune with the Lord and be transformed into His likeness.

In all these ways we can seek to transform a time of potential drudgery into moments of vivid and profound growth in our sanctification. Let us all prayerfully consider the motivations and attitudes as we serve our Lord here on earth.