Do It Again!
Blog / Produced by The High Calling
God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good! It was evening, it was morning— Day Six. Heaven and Earth were finished, down to the last detail.
When God got busy creating, he did so with energy and imagination. He didn’t hold back, and it’s clear why. God was having fun. The Genesis account of creation is full of an almost childlike joy. It seems that creating our universe, this planet, you and me, was a labor of love for God, and we’re told he was "very pleased" with the outcome.
Perhaps we should approach our work with the same verve and boldness? All too often we are overwhelmed with the sheer mundaneness of our work, and we get ourselves in a rut of low-grade despair. We may indeed believe we are called to our work, but we still get bored. A friend once told me that our boredom must be the ultimate insult to God. Perhaps boredom is the modern equivalent of "lukewarm," and we know how God feels about that (Rev. 3:14-22).
G. K. Chesterton talks about this joy of God’s unending act of creation in his great book Orthodoxy. He muses that God says to the rising sun every morning, "Do it again!" And so our work may involve seemingly endless routine, but we need to find the joy that lurks beneath even the most menial tasks. If an ode can be written for a grecian urn, then perhaps every widget is a wonder. Just because miracles happen every day doesn’t mean they are no longer miracles.
Perhaps we should let God’s creation inspire us. Take a hike into the nearby hills, visit a park, take a weekend getaway to your favorite quiet haunt, or just sit in your backyard. And then marvel at the audacity of God’s creativity. Think of the millions of blooms that are seen by no one but God. The smallest flower, hidden away in some lost dale, is a thing of exquisite beauty and symmetrical form. And every flower that takes root on the planet is different from every other flower; no snowflake is the same; each person’s face—despite the fact that God has only two ears, two eyes, and a nose and mouth to work with—is utterly unique. God not only made but continues to make, and he never tires.
Our work is our calling, even if we plan to leave it tomorrow. For we are here at work today, and God deals with us in the present. Some of us are tired and in desperate need of a change; a new position, perhaps, or a new boss, or even a new job. But maybe all we need is a new set of eyes to see our work in a whole new light, the way God sees each sunrise.
Tired of getting up for another day of work? God says, "Do it again!"
