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Show Notes
Presented by Julie Busteed
Work can be either overvalued or undervalued. When it is overvalued, it can quietly become an idol—an identity. So how do you keep that in check?
What if you genuinely enjoy your job and want to succeed? You have goals—maybe to advance, earn a certain position, or work at a prestigious place. Is that wrong? Is work becoming too important? Has it begun to define your whole life? I believe it comes down to the posture of our hearts.
King Solomon, a man who had more success and resources than most could imagine, reflects on this in Ecclesiastes. He writes: I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun (Ecclesiastes 2:9-11).
This sounds like striving and ambition to me. He was successful and achieved many things. But in the end King Solomon reflects and feels empty. He denied himself nothing yet nothing fulfilled him. He also writes in Psalms 127:1 that unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Ambition and striving are not inherently something to be avoided. But if you are not putting your relationship with God at the center, relying on him, trusting in him, daily walking with him, then it’s all in vain.
The question is not whether we should work hard or pursue excellence or go after that next promotion, but who we are working for and why. When our work is surrendered to God, it becomes more than striving. It becomes stewardship. We can hold ambition with open hands, trusting that our worth is not found in what we achieve, but in whose we are. As we commit our work to the Lord, he gives it meaning, direction, and lasting purpose—far beyond what we could accomplish on our own.
Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established (Proverbs 16:3).
I pray you think of your work—whatever it is—as unto the Lord, to be a good steward so others will see his light in your life.