I CANNOT STAND BEING FORCED TO DO NOTHING ALL DAY.
There are some days where I really enjoy staying inside my room, reading, writing, watching Netflix, and napping but even then I always have to have a buddy or some small plan during the day. But to be forced to skip classes and call in sick from a job that I love to stay home alone and let my body heal? No thank you.
There were two times I left my room today and both show you just how desperate I was for human companionship and a change of scenery:
1. At about 3:30pm I got out of my bed, brushed my teeth, fixed my crazy curls, and dressed to go buy water bottles from our university food court. I have cups. I have tap water. But I pushed myself out of bed and through the cold weather to go buy water just so I could see other humans.
2. At 5:15pm I pushed myself out of bed again to go to dinner in my university’s cafeteria. Any of you who have eaten in a school cafeteria of any sort need no further explanation of why this is a desperate move on my part. I sat there for two hours and barely spoke to any of my friends and just enjoyed being surrounded by beating hearts.
During this day of rest and loneliness, I was reminded of how thankful I am for a busy schedule. I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to fill my days with classes to expand my mind. I’m thankful that I have friends that I enjoy spending time with and talking to. I am thankful that I have a job that I love doing. There are so many times that I get caught up in my schedule that I forget what it’s like not to have a schedule. More than that, I forget to be thankful for having the health to follow a schedule or even enjoy a day off. But today, and more and more everyday, I am thankful for work. I am also thankful that work does not end with this world.
I remember as a child having a discussion with my dad about heaven. For the longest time, I had assumed that in heaven we all just wore white robes and floated on clouds while happily singing to Jesus. As a very young child, whose only job was to keep herself moderately clean and pick up her toys, this didn’t bother me in the slightest. I don’t have to pick up after myself in heaven? Fine by me. Give me a white robe. Teach me how to play the harp. All is well with the world. However, as I got older I realized that if that was what heaven was, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go there. It seemed boring and mundane and there was so much to do here on earth. But this thought scared me so much that I put it behind me and kept my mouth shut. What kind of Christian doesn’t want to go to heaven? So I didn’t talk to anyone about it for a really long time. Until finally, my dad and I were having a discussion about life and space and God and I timidly brought up my fears, hoping he wouldn’t think I was completely questioning everything he raised me to believe. And my dad answered me. AND HE DIDN’T EVEN SEEM SURPRISED OR WORRIED. He was just like, “Oh, yeah Callie I definitely think we’ll have jobs to do in heaven. Otherwise how boring would that be? I can’t imagine God wants us to just sit around in white robes playing the harp all day.”
My life and faith made way more sense after that conversation with my dad. Work is so often looked at as a negative thing that I think we forget how good it truly is. The very first introduction we have to God is the image of him working (“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” - Genesis 1:1). The first thing we see God do is actively create something he finds joy in. That’s so cool! We see him finish a task and rest. And even though God specifically blessed his day of rest, I don’t think it was because he preferred rest to work. Rather, I think God blessed his day of rest because he values work so much. I don’t think that God gave us the Sabbath so that we would stop being creative or productive. I think he gave us the Sabbath so we can take a step back and marvel at the work he has done through us. Rest in itself is boring and mundane. But rest after doing the work of the Lord allows us to find joy in our work and return to it with new hope and creativity.
Of course, work on earth can be tainted with sin and toil because we are sinful and we do have to work to live and eat and whatever else. But the Lord’s work is good. In it we find joy and purpose beyond what we toil for on earth. If we are constantly opening ourselves up to do the work of the Lord, then work becomes more and more beautiful. Even though I am thankful for the opportunity to rest, and I’m thankful for God’s creation of a body that can heal itself, today I am most thankful that God shares with us the joy of his work. And that, by grace, I can watch his work continue on long after this world comes to an end.