In that long ago era, Jeremiah was espousing what excellent parents, teachers and mentors tell us in our age. Work is good for us. It certainly was for me. Commonly, Scripture is not read in the understanding that every historical period holds about the same individual concerns as any other period. I see the Bible as a modern tool for living. Even if it is not accepted for its primary meaning of spiritual reconciliation and life with God, it provides continuing counsel for dynamic, healthful, moral and practical patterns for daily living. Scripture combines the spiritual with the temporal for human life, but these may be analyzed separately. Work benefits all, in or out of faith. We can gain temporal success if that is all we desire. Even so, religious persons are longer lived than those who have no faith, a small evidence of meaning. For all my adult life I have practiced Bible precepts so that even if God and immortality were not my emphases, I would find that, with Pascal, I had bet on the right context for living, real and practical for a temporal lifetime. Humanists can make a fairly good life for earth time in Common Grace. God is involved in his created world. If he were not we would lose the value of many of our prayers and expectations.
I floundered in school until I became a Christian. It was then that I determined what I would do with my life. From that point, my records improved markedly. At outset I could never have presumed that I would gain so many personal objectives. When we work with students we can see how much more they could gain than they are generating or gaining – how much more might be mined from their own inner God-given resources. So we talk about firm motivations, hard work and careful (orderly) thinking. Constructive concepts are built into nature. They can be distorted so to become negative for mankind. Adam was told to dress the garden and know it. Practical counsel appears for all in the commandment. It becomes advice because God does not force most issues. He knows that generally human beings may not do well with unsolicited advice. Nearly every person I know would do better with life if that person were early to take on, in serious consideration, a counselor-mentor (preferably a competent parent) who would be straight with him or her about the ways in which the individual approaches life improvement and activities in thought and conduct. Of the persons I know who have taken on the concept of personal responsibility to another, in grace and love without fear and offense, the performance of that person may become remarkable. The abilities, the possibilities, the advancements (growth) were present all the while. It took some parenting to motivate the mind, will, energy and activity.
I continue to be impressed by scriptural patterns for living. It is all there, from birth to death. We are instructed on cleanliness, diet, work, marriage/family, government, schedules, skills, balance – on just about any practical issue of personal management, especially in personal work and relationships. We are given orientation, on just about everything we might face in daily life performance. We are informed that we should work for the worthy things that are meaningful for living. When that is done we may expect that life will be more exciting, more healthful, more fulfilling, and problems more readily solved. The process has been tried too often, with marked success, to be denied. The stories of lives so fully oriented to the possibilities are too many to disregard. Today, we ought to work at living, so to occupy our personal world. For the Christian, spiritual resources make life meaningful – here and hereafter. God does not ask the human being to be so heavenly minded so as to be of little earthly good – or the reverse as well. Try it – you’ll like it. It provides a necessary personal life discipline. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020