12.5.2010 WORK AS CALLING

worldmag, 12.4.2010, p42 serving a higher purpose - marvin olasky...greg forster, referring to the dominant economic theory of the past four score years..wrote, 'the fundamental premise of keynesianism is that the purpose of economic activity is to facilitate consumption...materialistic anthropology suggests that affluent people have no reason to live, so they might as well entertain themselves with extensive consumption and travel..poor people also have no reason to live, so they might as well be on welfare.
God gave adam a reason to live..'put him in the garden of eden to work and keep it'. after the fall..'you shall eat the plants..by the sweat of your face you shall eat..'

God gave israel a reason to live: 'you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation'. Jesus gave His disciples a reason to live: 'go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you'.

p. 44 working for good - tony woodlief..is God indifferent to what our work itself yields?..today many people feel their jobs are pointless. is this really..how God wants me to spend 40 hours a week..william perkins..argued that vocation depends not only on one's talents, but on whether the work itself truly serves others..a man should resign out of private necessity (it doesn't pay what he needs or doesn't suit his talents and passions) or for the sake of the common good..he argued that the consequences of one's labor are integral to one's christian responsibility...don't be satisfied with any position. instead, the proper action of the christian mired in a bureaucratic job without clear connection to a creative or redemptive purpose may well be to seek other employment and accept financial loss.
..can we believe that God smiles on a worker dutifully canning beans? absolutely. but what about makers of food additives that serve no end other than to further an addiction to sweetness? or sellers of clearly inferior products?..fundamental: does my work create enduring value?

two essential elements - faithful service (is one using a cell phone during work?) and a work product that is genuinely valuable are synonymous.

..many in the..west are stricken by ennui, a particular blend of physical satiation and purposeless drift. our bellies are full and our hearts are empty...

p. 46, called to a community - timothy dalrymple..as an undergraduate, i belonged to a fellowship of faithful overachievers..we thot of vocation in the same way we thot of finding a spouse. just as we south 'the one' partner..so we sought to one path God had prepared for us..students feared that if they diverged from God's intended path..then they would mis out on the blessing of becoming who they were created and called to be.

when our 4 years.. were up, we scattered across the globe in pursuit of our vocations. the costs became clear over time...none of my 5 closest friends live in the same city as i do and none of their closest friends live in the same cities they do. we have equated vocation with profession at the expense of family and fellowship. and many who believed they were called to particular professions find themselves, when their fobs are lost or unfulfiling, frustrated and disillusioned..many regret the sacrifices they have ;made to the idol of their careers. one..wrote, 'i share my life with virtually no one, and if i don't do something about it they i will die just having been someone's employee'.
the conditions of modern living only exacerbate such problems. we are connected superficially to vastly more people than before, yet connected deeply to far fewer. when my father grew up on an iowa farm in the 1950s, he saw 10-30 people on a typical day. he knew them all. he knew their stories. they knew his. today we see thousands of faces every day, yet know hardly any of the souls behind them. surrounded by a sea of company, we die of thirst for companionship.

the most mobile and networked society in..history..has its drawbacks..today people have 2 others with which they shared important matters...nearly 30% of households are single person..technology! we know the news from wherever but not the neighbor on the other side of the fence.