Laborers Unite!!! This was once the cry that was the labor movement. Years ago, in the communist world this was a very big holiday. Communism was billed as a worker’s movement. It wasn’t, but that’s another post, not this one. But I do want to think about labor on this day which, in many places, is still a holiday.
But I want to think about the way many Christians few the Christian life as a set of tasks, a list of jobs… of, as I Tweeted recently, a kind of punching a clock for an unseen boss. This is not a biblical view of the movement that Jesus leads.
I heard from a friend lately who came to realize that he was so busy that he was running in circles of activity… circles. Where do circles get us? Well, these circles of activity are tantamount to what some call a dead end job. They are not going anywhere and there is little meaning in them other than just in their doing.
Meaning.
We are daughters and sons of the King who are called precious by Him. We are adopted into his family and are co-heirs with Christ and given the privilege of being a part of the extending of His Kingdom. This is what Paul meant:
Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:28-29 ESV)
HIS energy.
HIS fruit.
Because He works in and through us, His joyful children.
What did He tell us to do?
Go and make disciples.
Let us stop filling our hours with circular labor trying to keep dead programs alive on live support. Let us, instead, draw close to Him through abiding in Him who is the true source of energy. Then may our toil be in bringing and reminding others about Him through caring relationships which draw them into the presence of Jesus so that they too may find God’s power and the fruit of His Spirit in us.
On this May Day let us celebrate God’s labor in and through us.
kingdom travelin' 