Monday, August 18, 2008 - When You’re “Dumped On”
Do you know anyone who is out of a job? And another question: Do you know anyone who is out of work? You may be thinking, that's the same question you just asked.
Ah, but no, those are two different questions, because our job and our work are not the same things. We tend to get those terms confused most of the time, but they are not interchangeable terms. I want to point out the differences between our job and our work.
Let's begin with some very basic definitions: Our job is what we do day-in and day-out to bring in income. It is the duties we perform, most often for an employer, for which we expect to receive money or some form of compensation.
A company achieves its goals by hiring people to do jobs that are pre-designed, with job descriptions that are pre-written, without consideration of the person who will fill it.
Our work, on the other hand, is what God has designed us to do. It is our purpose for being here, what we are uniquely created for. It is distinctly linked to our gifts, talents, and assets that we have been given by God. Our work is for the purpose of bringing glory to him and fulfilling us as well. While many people may have identical jobs, no two people have the same work, because each of us has a plan for our lives that is unique.
Most Christians don't really know the difference in their job and their work. And when this is not clear to us, we can encounter many difficulties.
For example, one of our most common mistakes is to expect our job to fulfill us. In times past Americans seemed to have a love affair with their careers, but have you sensed that is changing rapidly? People no longer expect to work for one employer throughout their career and build that family relationship as we have in the past. And so this passion we've had for our careers is becoming more like a fatal attraction.
Yet, because we've seen our jobs as our work, many people continue to look to the workplace to find meaning and purpose in their lives. If you don't know the difference in your job and your work, you can see how frightening and disillusioning this can be.
Do you know anyone who has been utterly shattered because they lost their job? Or a retiree who fell apart with no job to go to everyday? That's because their jobs defined them, and once that job went away, they didn't know who they were. They didn't have any work to do.
We need a biblical perspective of our jobs, don't we?
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