“Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” Proverbs 10:4
I hope I have always been known as a hard worker. My employers have seemed to think so, and the people I’ve managed have noticed, but it has always been easy for me. My work has never been especially hard physical work, and when I’ve had the opportunity to do physical work in my personal life it has been gratifying as well. However, lately I’ve had the opportunity to do a great deal more physical work, over a period of a couple of months, than I have taken on in a very long time.
What I’m saying is, I found myself feeling a little “whiny”, and needed a reminder about what God has to say about hard work. (Note to reader: if you’re hoping, even a little like I was, that you’ll find a wealth of verses telling you to not work so hard as you age… well, you may want to stop reading now.)
As I searched for this verse, relating to work, I stumbled across multiple reminders of what I have always considered to be an interesting set of principles about work, as follows:
- There are 575 references to the word “work” in the New American Standard version.
- Of those, a surprising number (I did not count to find out exactly how surprising) of them relate to God working, because He is dealing with humans. If you’re like me you don’t typically think about God “working”, but clearly His Word sets a standard for work through His example.
- I expected many in Proverbs, and there are quite a few for only thirty-one chapters, but Exodus and the Psalms have a much greater number of verses including this word.
So, “work” is running all through wisdom-Proverbs, praises-Psalms, and freedom-Exodus. Granted, these are all very much Old Testament books, full of Old Testament covenant ideas, but it still struck me as interesting.
As I read through the verses in Exodus, I noticed none of them dealt with the people working for their freedom, rather all of their work is directly related to demonstrating either the greatness of God or in their praise and worship of Him. God did not need the Israelites to do the work of freeing themselves, they only needed to demonstrate His greatness through their faith.
As I read through the verses in Psalms, this theme is repeated. My simple reading of these verses found an increasing emphasis on putting our efforts into lifting up the name of the Lord, and not on somehow working to gain His favor or earn something from God.
Finally, Proverbs, which held the verse I was originally searching for, clearly wrapped up these themes, at least for me. Proverbs take on work: “hey it is good for you, so work!” Whether it is working so we can demonstrate to the world that following after God is good for our communities, or so we can take care of our own families, it is clear that our work is a testament to being a faithful follower of God. Proverbs also makes clear the relationship between diligently working and avoiding the temptations of sloth and “easy money”. Finally, one only needs to read Proverbs 31 to clearly see that the product of our hard work, success, testifies to the faithfulness of God. Even our successes point the world to God, if they are inclined to see it.