Years ago, I remember I would have said I wanted to own a tall ship, run it as a school. It would be the perfect balance of work and leisure. Sail the world in a majestic ship, introduce others to the world, education and the art of sailing. Hard work, but with meaning. Of course, tall ships aren’t cheap, so that’s a dream job I won’t see anytime soon!
Work is a complicated thing. Some people dream of never working again. Others dream of a certain kind of work.
Listen in on the GO train conversations, you’ll hear lots of complaining. But when asked in a scientific survey, 76% of all Canadian workers are either ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ at work. We seem to have this love hate relationship with work. We’re not quite sure what to make of it.
Here’s a test: If you suddenly inherited enough money to retire, would you? Or would you take on your dream job? A lot of us would – lottery winners are often saying they’ll keep working, they’ll just change their attitude about work.
That’s our question to discuss today: If you suddenly inherited enough money to retire, would you stop working, or work differently?
Acknowledgements: Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavour and Work & Rest
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Remember our story yesterday about Jesus stopping to help a hurting woman? It wasn’t just about interruptions. After helping the woman who interrupted his travels, Jesus carried on his way towards Jairus’ house, since he’d asked Jesus to heal his daughter. It turns out that Jairus’daughter had died in the meantime, but Jesus kept going, and arrived at her bedside and raised her from the dead. That’s the true point of this story – the resurrection from the dead is what we’re heading toward – ultimate goal. He gives us a glimpse in this story, showing us that our death will not be the end of us, but that Jesus offers to simply wake us up in his kingdom. It’s a matter of whether we want to join that party.
Jesus said the main thing was loving God, loving neighbours. The confidence to live that way, with all its sacrifices in this world, all flows from Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. It is our resurrection from being dead to sin now, and the physical death still to come.
We can be distracted by other things – even good things – and lose perspective. We can tell ourselves things will settle down, or that more will be enough, or that everybody lives like this.
But these are distractions. We can only do so many things well – why not make our specialty what God says is most important? We’ll have to slow down.
John Ortberg – Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is the one thing hurried people don’t have.”
Think of the difference between good doctor and bad doctor from a patient’s perspective. It often has to do with perception of being hurried – does the doctor seem to listen and care? I know someone who visited the doctor recently, and waiting for an hour in the exam room listening to him talk on the phone about golf, then she heard him tell a drug rep he was extremely busy. She knew it was a lie, and that he didn’t care about her as a person.
We don’t want to be like that with our neighbours!
Question: What good things might be keeping you from the “main thing” of loving God, who calls you to your neighbours?
We meet for coffee every Wednesday night at Starbucks in the Chapters Store in Ajax, in Durham Region just East of Toronto. Maybe we'll see you there?
