Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-167 (Practical Christian Living)

NO EASY JOBS

“If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks.” – Ecclesiastes 10:18

Henry Ward Beecher was born June 24, 1813 in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was educated at Amherst College and Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati where his father, Lyman Beecher, was president. In 1847, he was called to pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York and served there forty years. He became one of the most popular and widely known ministers in America emphasizing the love of God in his sermons. He often spoke out against slavery and in favor of women’s suffrage and industrial reform.

A student once wrote to Henry Ward Beecher, asking him how to obtain “an easy job.” Mr. Beecher replied, “If that’s your attitude, you’ll never amount to anything. You cannot be an editor or become a lawyer or think of entering the ministry. None of these professions are easy. You will have to forget the fields of merchandising and shipping, abhor the practice of politics, and forget about the difficult field of medicine. To be a farmer or even a good soldier, you must study and think. My son, you have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is in the grave.”

The Lord has given us work to do and He desires us to be busy at it. Are you prone to laziness? Today in prayer, ask Christ to give you a heart for your job so you can do your work unto Him.

“There is not a thing on the face of the earth that I abhor so much as idleness or idle people.” – George Whitefield

God’s Word: “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest– and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” – Proverbs 24:33-34

WORK CANNOT SATISFY

“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes 2:11

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. Oak Park was a mainly Protestant, upper middle-class suburb of Chicago that Hemingway would later refer to as a town of “wide lawns and narrow minds.” He was raised with the conservative midwestern values of strong religion, hard work, physical fitness and self-determination. He retained all of these values except he became an atheist as an adult.

Turning his back on the Lord, work took center stage in his life and his work was his writing. He said that writing was “the only positive thing a man could do.” He believed that a writer could treat a subject honestly only if the writer had participated in or observed the subject closely. He volunteered to be an ambulance driver in World War I and a newspaper correspondent during the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

His experiences brought about some of his best work in his novels A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. At age sixty-two, Hemingway was growing increasingly depressed. No longer could he write without an editor finishing his work. He committed suicide when he realized he was unable to continue to work.

God ordains work, but work is not to be worshiped. Only in Christ does our work find purpose. Is your work meaningful? Today in prayer, worship the Lord that He has given you life and work to do for Him.

“He who prays and labors lifts his heart to God with his hands.” – Bernard of Clairvaux

God’s Word: “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.” – Psalm 127:1

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>From the Virtuosity Digest: David Virtue <>

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