Laboring for Love and Glory

I believe it's easy to forget that work existed before the Fall. 

God created the world and everything in it including man. "And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done." ( Genesis 2:2 ) 

God gave Adam work - to tend a garden, name the animals, and to care for his wife. To be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion as the pinnacle of God's workmanship, to care for the earth.

Work is good.

But I believe it isn't so easy to forget that work exists now among the weeds this side of Eden after the sin of our first parents. ( Genesis 3:15, Romans 5:12 ) Work is still honorable and needful and God-given, yet its labor is carried out through groans and grunts, challenges, in the thick of the thorns and thistles that now fill the landscape of our world.

We were created to work. Even in these often difficult conditions, we can find great joy in our work. And we should. As believers, we know that God has ordained "good works" for us to do, ( Ephesians 2:10 ) and he promises to help us complete them for his glory. ( Philippians 1:6 ) 

And all work that we engage in, not just "ministry" work or seemingly "big" work, is in fact considered "big, ministry work," according to the Scriptures. Whether the work be raising our children or the smallest act of kindness we show to others in service to them or preforming heart surgery, ALL work is honorable if done for the glory of God. This is how we must view work.

Nothing is trivial. Not in God's kingdom.

One day when Jesus makes all things new, ( Revelation 21:5 ) God will redeem work. Until then:

"Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!" ( Psalms 90:16-17 ) 

Let's labor for our Lord!

Happy Labor Day! 

Where were you? Part 2

 

You have to appeciate the strength and beauty together of God's creatures and His creation. They reflect in some way God's own "eternal power" and "divine nature." ( Romans 1 ) 

They remind us of whom we are dealing with if we'll have eyes to see and stop "suppressing the truth by our unrighteousness." ( Again, Romans 1 ) 

The first thing I believe that is fatally tragic about the "American gospel" is this notion that God is just a big one of us, this tendency in human nature to pull God down to our own level, demanding He owes us salvation and an explanation. 

Who do we think we are? 

I've been going through my parent's home this summer. The emotional strain is endless as you may know from your own story. My mom kept everything. She just packed it all away so neatly that I never knew it was there until I started digging.

I found a song Johnny wrote for her, his grandmother, after my sister died. It was entitled, Where were you? This is a well-known question from the Book of Job.

The song lyrics ask God where he was when our family faced various heartbreaks. The last verse; however, has God responding back saying, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?"

"Tell me if you have understanding. Who determinded its measurements - surely you know!"

"Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no further, and here shall your proud waves be stayed.'" ( Job 38:4, 5, 8-11 ) 

"Where were you when they killed my boy?" The song asked next. 

For four chapters worth God finally gives Job the audience and answer he so desperately seeks. And what an answer it is. In Scripture, I'm not sure anything else, no cross reference, compares to it. 

The interesting thing is that in none of His response does God reveal a reason for Job's suffering. Yet, Job's mouth is shut and his heart is full. 

The reason for his suffering no longer matters. Because Job now knows something better.

Job knows God. 

💜

Job - Where were you?

I tiptoed around the corner of the porch to this old weathered beach chair that belonged to my mom. I was hoping to rest after a long day, but he found me. No rest for the weary. 😂

I'm back in the Book of Job in my 2026 Bible Reading Plan. Even people who aren't familiar with the Bible or claim Christianity, know about the suffering of Job, from the city of Uz. The Book of Job is part of what biblical scholars call "the wisdom literature" along with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Everyday expressions and phrases we use originated in the Book of Job such as "skin of my teeth" and "the patience of Job." 

The number one reason people give in various surveys and apologetic debates as to why they don't believe in God is the problem of evil, suffering. Many claim that if there is a God, that God would be good, and therefore, he would not allow room for suffering in his world. 

How do they know that? Isn't that presumptuous and closed-minded? 

Another group that pushes back on suffering is the Word of Faith movement which is a false form of Christianity that rose up in the U.S. in the last century. Think New Thought philosophy and New Age law of attraction. 

Scantly painted with a thin Christian veneer, they teach that one can have what one says and meditates upon, mind over matter. Instead of being based on the Bible, the theology is founded on Napoleon Hill's popular self-help book, Think and Grow Rich. Ken Copeland recently, shamelessly admitted this when he was being interviewed by his granddaughter Courtney. 

The followers claim and confess, speak and write their desires and wishes down on paper, repeating them out loud over and over. "Faith comes by hearing," they twist, a verse that in context describes salvation not getting your Christmas gift list. Faith is a precious and gracious gift from God, not a force to wield like a lightsaber while declaring it is always God's will to heal and make one prosperous and successful in this lifetime. 

The Farmer and I were in this movement for decades and never once heard the true Gospel of Jesus Christ unpacked. Jesus, when mentioned, was simply a means to an end. 

Since their theology doesn't include a category for Christian suffering, as you might imagine, the Book of Job is a real problem for these word-faith folks. 

They have to try to find a way around it, and they do. "I can do all things through a Bible verse taken out of context." I saw that "verse" on a coffee mug. Funny, but true. In Chapter 3 verse 25, Job says that the thing he so greatly feared had come upon him. 

Word of Faith teachers say, "You see? It was Job's fault. He feared, so it came upon him." And presto, just like that, they cancel and delete the entire Book of Job, and ironically, all of the true wealth and glorious riches along with it. 

First off, read in context, this verse reveals what each of us fear as humans, loss of health, family, friends, our vocations. This is part and parcel of life in a fallen world, even, I'd say especially for Christians. It reveals how fleeting and fragile life truly is east of Eden which in turn causes us to trust Christ deeper, as God uses our suffering to transform us from one shade of glory to another, and to depend more heavily on Him, not the world's broken, fatal system that one day will require and eat up our soul. ( 2 Corinthians 3:18 ) 

The reality reminds us to always have our eyes fixed on the life to come, not this one, as Job puts it, "You will call, and I will answer; you will yearn for the creature your hands have made." ( 14:15 ) I know, isn't that beyond astounding? 

Even clearer at the beginning of the book, we are told that Job is "blameless and upright, fears God and turns from evil." 

We are shown God allowing Satan to cause Job's suffering for God's good purposes of revealing Job's good character while also refining him, and then blowing his mind. 

I won't spoil the ending.

Wolves in sheep's clothing are "banking" on people not knowing their Bibles. And atheists often find themselves borrowing from other religions to explain suffering because their world view doesn't hold out any hope or reason for it. Everything just derived from random processes. Nothing really matters. 

However, here, tucked in near the center of the Bible, God actually does reveal to us a great deal about human suffering, revealing that our pain is not wasted, if we will have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind and heart to understand. And the courage to read it. 

💜