The Joy of Faith-Held Work

Work it is that gives us joy,

standing around never delivers on its promise,

couldn’t help notice this since I was a boy,

all life stands on what we accomplish.

Harried to be, focused and aware,

dither we don’t, “no waste to be seen here,”

this is about a life that cares,

an approach communicating all things are dear.

Diligent to an inch, strident and true,

at least now whilst we can,

the trick for us is keeping things new,

all over as much entire life’s span.

Dealing with discouragements all the same,

coming in always without warning,

still we are consistent and tame,

not fighting the ebbs even when dawning.

A golden-lived promise, the scurrying worry,

dealt with in as much as needs,

for we’ve established favour to curry,

our identity’s sunk deep in our deeds.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Work is and always has been the ticket to ride in life. Without satisfaction from our work we quickly devolve and denigrate into shells of our former selves.

Indeed, it’s work that we owe our next generation—the opportunity to live via making a living and the creation of a way of life custom-designed to the divine purposes of the individual as best divined by them in communication with God.

The Virtue of Diligence – Guider and Protector

Work is a commitment to diligence.

And diligence is a key to life. It gets us through the inescapable depths that come—those “ebbs” that are mentioned in the poem above.

Diligence surrounding working at life is at last about resilience—that ability to always be bouncing back.

Diligence is attending proactively to all the issues of life that bear down on us, and not letting those more awesome worries have their way with us.

Our deeds, finally, are the making of us, not that this is about a works-righteousness at all. Our deeds, however, symbolise exactly who we are and what we stand for. Our deeds show the world what we’re about and what people we are; and diligence it is that the person after God’s own heart wants to be known for.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.