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1: Making Work Meaningful · Finding God at Work

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Just a reminder that Finding God at Work
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isn't just a podcast.
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It's also an online course.
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Check it out at findinggodatwork.org.
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With this episode, we're kicking off a new
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series, Meaningful Work, Calling, Formation, Service and Love.
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I don't know if you've ever used this
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strategy with toddlers, where you're trying to communicate
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something to some older kids or to an
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adult in the room, but you don't want
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the toddler to overhear it.
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So you spell it out instead of saying
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it.
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So for example, maybe I'm talking to a
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friend who's got a toddler around, and I
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want to say, hey, after dinner, maybe we
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could have some I-C-E-C-R
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-E-A-M, right?
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I'm hoping that the toddler will not cotton
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on that I'm talking about ice cream.
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What's the point of this strategy?
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Well, obviously, we're trying to communicate meaning to
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one person, the older kids or the adult,
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without communicating meaning to the toddler.
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Because if the toddler grasps the meaning of
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what we're saying, all pandemonium will break loose,
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right?
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The ice cream will derail the entire evening,
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getting to bed on time plan.
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We don't want that.
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We do want ice cream.
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So we have to come up with this
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sort of like two-pronged communication approach where
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it's going to work for some people, but
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not for other people.
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It's all about the meaning of the word.
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And when we think about our work, meaning
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is also really important.
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And I feel like sometimes it can feel
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almost like we're the toddler, and the universe
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or the late modern capitalist society in which
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we live, or our career is like speaking
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to us in a way that we can't
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understand.
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We don't see how our work is meaningful.
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It's gibberish to us.
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And if we could just decode the meaning
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of our work, then maybe we could get
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some traction.
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Then maybe we could go somewhere.
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Then maybe it would all make sense in
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some way.
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And it can be really discouraging when you
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feel like, I just don't see the point
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of it all.
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I don't see how it's meaningful.
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We spent a lot of time in our
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last series, Divine Disappointments, kind of digging into
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that feeling of what do you do when
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your work just feels like a dead end?
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In this series, we're going to take the
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positive approach of how can we find meaning
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in our work?
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How can we make our work meaningful?
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And I want to kind of look at
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that idea of making meaning in two different
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ways.
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One is that idea of decoding, of maybe
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there's meaning that's already there in our work,
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but we just haven't grasped it.
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And we can take hold of it and
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realize the meaning that's already there.
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But then the other sense of making meaning
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is there are things that we can do
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that will actually make our work more meaningful.
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We can actually contribute to the meaning of
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our work.
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We can take personal responsibility for our own
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agency, our own capacity to realize meaning within
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our work.
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So we want to think about it both
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ways.
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We're both finding meaning and making meaning.
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We're making meaning in the sense of making
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sense of, but we're also making meaning, contributing
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to the meaning of our work.
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And the scripture is going to guide us
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in all of these things, like usual.
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So I want to turn to a scripture
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passage.
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It might not seem like it has to
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do with meaningful work at first, but as
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I unpack it, hopefully you'll see the connection.
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So this is from 1 John, the epistle
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of John.
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It's called a general epistle because it wasn't
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to just one specific location.
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It was for believers in general to read.
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And it's a very famous passage where we
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get the teaching that God is love.
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So I'm starting in chapter four, verse 16.
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God is love, and whoever abides in love
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abides in God, and God abides in him.
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By this is love perfected with us, so
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that we may have confidence for the day
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of judgment, because as he is, so also
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are we in this world.
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And then a couple of verses later, it
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says, we love because he first loved us.
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I want to focus on that phrase, as
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he is, so also are we in this
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world.
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What is John saying there?
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Well, he seems to be communicating something about
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our purpose in the world, our place in
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the world.
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As God is, so are we in this
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world.
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There's something about who God is that we
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are meant to communicate to others in this
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world.
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And what is that?
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Well, most fundamentally, that's love.
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We love because he first loved us.
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We've received God's love for us in Jesus
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Christ and the power of his death and
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resurrection.
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And now we can extend that love to
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other people in the world.
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But I want to focus on how that
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is an essential expression of meaning.
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And I want to draw a little bit
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on the work of a philosopher named Michael
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Polanyi.
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So Polanyi in his seminal work, The Tacit
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Dimension, he talks about this idea.
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And I'm not going to quote, I'm just
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going to paraphrase, but he talks about, suppose
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you have somebody who is feeling their way
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with a walking stick, right?
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Like somebody who's blind or visually impaired, right?
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But they've learned how to navigate the world
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based on what they feel in their hand
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with that stick.
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He says the feeling of the stick in
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their hand, right?
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That's communicating something directly, right, approximately to them,
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which is literally the stick in their hand.
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They're getting to know the feeling of that
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stick in their hand.
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But through experience, what they're learning is actually
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they're learning about the shape of the world
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around them.
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They've learned to expand from the feel of
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the staff in their hand to the shape
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of the world around them.
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And in that sense, the feel of the
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staff in their hand means something.
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It's communicating to them about the world around
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them.
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The meaning of those feelings in their hand
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is like, oh, this means that there's a
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sidewalk here.
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This means that there's a corner here.
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This means that there's a wall here.
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So those feelings are meaningful.
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But the meaning is actually, to use the
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technical term, distal, right?
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It's distant from the person, even though the
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literal sensation is right where they are.
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It's giving them information about the world all
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around them.
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And this is kind of an essential aspect
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of how meaning works in the world.
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For you philosophy nerds out there, Polanyi calls
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this the semantic aspect of tacit knowledge.
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But I'm not going to dig into that
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because that'll throw us off in a relatively
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short podcast.
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But what I think is helpful for all
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of us is this idea that when we
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have a kind of immediate, proximate, close to
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us experience, that experience is often communicating something
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that's actually true about the wider world way
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beyond us.
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Somehow the world out there comes close to
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us.
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And if we're able to recognize that meaning,
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we actually do know something about that broader
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world.
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Okay, what does this have to do with
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this passage in 1 John?
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Well, again, come back to this key phrase,
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as he is, so also are we in
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this world.
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We are like the walking staff that's communicating
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about that reality of God right up close
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to people in the world, right?
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The people in this world, they don't necessarily
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have direct experience of God.
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Now, in some ways they may, right, as
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God reaches them and gives them knowledge of
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himself and Jesus Christ, they may have a
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direct experience of God.
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But we, right up until that point, we
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are the ones who are communicating the reality
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of who God is to those people.
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We're like those little vibrations in the staff
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that shows them like, oh, look, there's a
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sidewalk here.
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Oh, look, there's a there's a corner here.
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There's a there's a wall here.
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Eventually we're communicating there's a God here.
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There's a God of love here.
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You can step in to this big, beautiful
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world that's that's beyond you and you can
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know this God of love and you can
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live inside of his love.
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They get to know that through us.
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So this is really beautiful that we have
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this privilege of actually forming part of the
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meaning of the world for other people, right?
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We mean something to other people.
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We communicate meaningfully about the reality of the
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universe and of God simply by being as
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God is in the world.
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As he is, so also are we in
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this world.
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We love because he first loved us.
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OK, so what does this have to do
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with work?
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Well, I think that if you if you
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think about your work as something that you're
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accomplishing in the world and it can sometimes
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feel meaningless, it's like what's the point?
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A way to think about it is in
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what ways does my work communicate something about
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God to the world?
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Now, that might be a strange way of
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putting it, but I think this is true,
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not just in quote unquote Christian ministry roles,
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not just in quote unquote service roles like
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nursing, health care, education, but take a quote
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unquote secular role.
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Maybe somebody who's a software developer.
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I think that software development still communicates something
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about God in the world.
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It communicates something about his creativity, the fact
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that the human mind can grasp things and
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structure them and design them and the things
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that they've created, those tools, those software applications
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can serve specific purposes in the world.
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There's something about God's creativity that's communicated through
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that.
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As he is, so also are we in
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this world.
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Even in a small way, you by doing
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even a secular job, doing it well, doing
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it to serve other people, you're communicating something
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about who God is.
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You're giving that clue about the meaning of
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the universe to the people around you.
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And so when we think about finding meaning
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in our work, one way of thinking about
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it is how is my work communicating the
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meaning of the world, the meaning of reality,
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the meaning of life to the people around
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me?
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And that can take a lot of different
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forms.
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So that's why we're breaking it down in
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this series into calling, formation, service and love.
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And again, these things overlap.
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They intersect, but it can be helpful to
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look at them distinctly.
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So calling if God calls us to do
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something specific, big if and we'll talk a
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little bit about that.
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But if God calls us to do something
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specific in our work, that gives it meaning
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in and of itself.
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The fact that we're responding to a call
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from God that imbues our work with meaning
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formation.
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If our work is part of what's shaping
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our character, what's forming us to be Christlike
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in the way that we are as human
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beings, then that makes our work intrinsically meaningful
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as he is.
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So also are we in this world?
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If if our work is in some way
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being used by God to make us more
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like him in this world, then our work
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is deeply meaningful.
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Service.
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If our work serves human needs or good
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human desires in some way, then that is
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also meaningful.
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We can think about, OK, how does our
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work realize this reality for other people?
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And then finally, love very closely aligned with
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service, but that idea that we love because
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he first loved us, that in our work,
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in the way we get the work done
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and in the way we interact with other
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people, just in our work relationships, we can
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communicate the love of God.
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And that makes our work and our work
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context especially meaningful.
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OK, so that was a lot.
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We're going to cover this this territory throughout
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the series in a few different ways, kind
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of unpacking each of those four ideas.
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We've also got some interviews coming up that
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I'm really excited about with some people who
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are smarter than I am and who are
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great examples of living these things out.
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Just to kind of give us a final
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image to rest with, I want to tell
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a story.
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And this is a story that goes back
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to the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral in
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London back in the sixteen hundreds.
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And it may be a familiar story.
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It's kind of become almost like a modern
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work parable, but it seems to have been
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first recorded by a writer and actually a
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politician named Bruce Barton in 1927.
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And in his book, What Can a Man
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Believe?
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And I want to just give the original
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version of it.
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There's lots of different forms of it that
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have kind of gotten out there.
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But he's talking about the architect Christopher Wren,
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who's overseeing the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral
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in London in 1666, following a devastating fire.
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So Barton writes, one morning, he, that is
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Christopher Wren, passed among the workmen, most of
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whom did not know him.
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And of three different men engaged in the
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same kind of work, he asked the same
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question, what are you doing?
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From the first, he received the answer, I
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am cutting this stone.
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From the second, the answer was, I am
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earning three shillings and six pence a day.
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But the third man straightened up, squared his
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shoulders and holding his mallet in one hand
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and chisel in the other, proudly replied, I
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am helping Sir Christopher Wren to build this
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great cathedral.
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There are three ways of looking at life.
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One, I am just cutting this stone.
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Two, I am only earning a living.
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Three, I am doing a small part of
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a great work.
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I have not seen the architect and I
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do not altogether understand the plan, but I
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believe there is a plan.
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And so I work with good spirit and
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which is no fear.
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All right.
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Isn't that isn't that a beautiful story?
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And I love that reference to no fear
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at the end.
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This same passage in First John that we've
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been looking at is actually the passage that
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says perfect love casts out all fear.
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So so again, that's a whole nother teaching
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in and of itself.
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But what's the point of the parable here?
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You get three workers.
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They're all doing the exact same thing.
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They're cutting stones for the cathedral.
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But one only sees it as I'm cutting
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a stone.
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The other sees it as I'm earning money.
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I'm making a living.
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And the final one sees it as I'm
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helping Sir Christopher Wren build this great cathedral.
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I'm building the house of the living God.
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Well, all three of them were correct.
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None of them was lying.
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None of them was saying something false about
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their work.
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But how often do we get stuck replying,
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I'm just cutting a stone or I'm just
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earning a living when there's a way of
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looking at our work, when we see that
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as he is, so also are we in
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this world, that we through our work are
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building the cathedral of living God here on
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earth.
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So let that image stay with you today
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and ask, how could my work become meaningful
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because of God's love made manifest in it
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to the world?
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Lord Jesus, thank you for your creativity, for
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your Holy Spirit that inspires us even in
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a mundane and, quote unquote, secular work.
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Help us to see the meaning that is
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there and to do our part to contribute
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to it, to be as you are in
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the world.
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Jesus, do your work in us as we
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do our work with you.
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Thanks for listening.
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15:26
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