Getting the Right Life and Work Balance
As we all face the possibility of greater numbers of unemployed people due to the present economic downturn. Does this mean that work is defined simply by employment? As christians should we be encourageing more people to think about an intigrated life of service.
For the past couple of Sunday evenings I've been preaching about the importance of having a good life balance. I know some people might think that I'm a workaholic and that perhaps I should be taking the old adage seriously "physician heal thyself ". The truth is I've tried to live what I call an intigrated life. I'm not interested in living my life in compartments or in boxes, keeping this part separate from the other. I want to live out the challenge of trying to understand what it means to allow the teaching of Jesus Christ to touch every part of my life. From work to recreation from family to community to church. Faith must have an impact on all these areas or it is less than authentic. I guess what I'm saying is being a disciple of Jesus Christ is a 24/7 vocation. You don't stop being a Christian becaue its your day off. You don't stop being a Christian because your chilling out. We live every moment as an act of woship to God. This is not an easy lifestyle to adapt. Yes i fail constantly but that doesn't mean to say that I should stop holding it up nefore myself and others as a counsel of perfection.
Being a minister gives you a great amount of flexibility in the way you manage and organise your time. It has its pitfalls often I've got the balance wrong but it has helped me dee the significance of seeking to develop a more integrated life between work, church and leisure and of course family.
Last Sunday I was highlighting the import role that work is given in the scriptures. it is too easy to dismiss work as a kind of punishment laid at the door of mankind by God after the fall. To do so is to miss the whole
significance of work as being part of the nature of our creating God. When we are made in God's image this includes the the need to create and amend our surroundings, to conserve and restore to completeness that which has become broken or polluted. All this is reflected in the term we call work. In the sermon last Sunday i suggested that that perhaps a good definition of work is to try and describe work as being useful and fruitful.
I guess what I'm saying is that we might have a far less number of disillusioned people if we began to describe work in these terms. What do you think?
Posted By: Jimmy On: 13 Aug 2010 At: 10:16pm
Does this mean that work is defined simply by employment?
This is an intriguing thought, I find I add - and payment - to the end of it.
We tend to see work as payed employment perhaps we need to open an account in the Bank of Heaven.