God Rebuilds the World Through Our Work

We know as soon as reminded, that work spins the wheels of the world.

No work? Then nothing else either. Culture and civilization don’t just happen. They are made to happen and to keep happening—by God the Holy Spirit, through our work.

Imagine that everyone quits working, right now! What happens? Civilized life quickly melts away. Food vanishes from the shelves, gas pumps dry up, streets are no longer patrolled, and fires burn themselves out. Communication and transportation services end, and utilities go dead. Those who survive at all are soon huddled around campfires, sleeping in tents, and clothed in rags.

The Power of Our Work

The difference between barbarism and culture is, simply, work. One of the mystifying facts of history is why certain people create progressive cultures while others lag behind. Whatever that explanation, the power lies in work.

Another interesting thing is that if all workers did quit, it would not make too much difference which workers quit first—front office, boardroom, assembly line, or custodial staff. Civilized living is so closely knit that when any pieces drop out, the whole fabric begins to crumple. Let city sanitation workers go out this week, and by next week streets are smothered in garbage. Give homemaking mothers leave, and many of us suddenly go hungry and see our kids running wild. Civilization is so fragile that we either all hang together or, as Ben Franklin warned during the American Revolution, “we shall all hang separately.”

Incidentally, let’s not make the mistake, if we ever are tempted, of estimating the importance of our work, or of any kind of work, by the public esteem it enjoys. Up-front types make news, but only workers create civilized life. The mosaic of culture, like all mosaics, derives its beauty from the contribution of each tiny bit.

The Harvest of Our Work

As seeds multiply themselves into harvest, so work flowers into civilization. Civilization, like a fertile field, yields far more in return on our efforts than our particular jobs put in.

Verify that by taking a casual look around the room in which you are now sitting. Just how long would it have taken you to make, piece by piece, the things you can lay eyes on?

Let’s look together.

That chair you are lounging in? Could you have made it for yourself? Well, I suppose so, if we mean just the chair! Perhaps you did in fact go out to buy the wood, the nails, the glue, the springs—and put it all together. But if by making the chair we mean assembling each part from scratch, that’s quite another matter. How do we get, say, the wood? Go and fell a tree? But only first after making the tools for that, and putting together some kind of vehicle to haul the wood, and constructing a mill to do the lumber and roads to drive on from place to place. In short, a lifetime or two to make one chair! We are physically unable, it is obvious, to provide ourselves from scratch with the household goods we can now see from wherever you and I are sitting—to say nothing of building and furnishing the whole house.

Consider everything else that we can use every day and not really see. Who builds and maintains the roads and streets we take for granted? Who polices them so we can move about in comparative safety? Who erects the stores, landscapes the parks, builds the freeways? Who provides the services that keep things going in good weather and bad?

Well, civilization blends work into doing all that. It’s what we mean by civilization, really—goods and services on hand when we need them. There are countless workers, just like ourselves—including ourselves—whose work creates the harvest that provides each of us with far more than we could ever provide for ourselves.

Going shopping? Someone’s work has already stocked the aisles with food, stuffed the racks with clothing, crowded counters with goods—for you!

Going traveling? Someone’s work has already paved the highways, built the airports, designed and fueled the planes—for you!

Going abroad? Someone’s work has already raised the cathedrals, painted the pictures, laid out the cities—for you!

Staying home? Someone’s work enlivens TV channels, prints the daily paper, and keeps social order—for you!

In trouble? Someone’s work defies emergencies, defeats the storms, and has repairs ready—for you!

So everywhere and at all times, there are countless hands moving all the wheels of civilization—for you!

Work plants the seed; civilization reaps the harvest. Work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others; civilization is the form in which others make themselves useful to us. We plant; God gives the increase to unify the human race.

Editor's Note: We are grateful to have received permission from Acton to reprint this excerpt from Lester DeKoster's classic Work: The Meaning of Your Life republished recently by Christian's Library Press and the Acton Institute. Stephen Grabill handed me the book at CCO Jubilee the past February, and I read most of the book on the plane ride home late that night. I am not exaggerating to say that this book exploded my understanding of several Scriptural references to work. Since I've been Senior Editor of The High Calling for several years now, this is no small matter. I've read so many books on faith and work that I know the drill. Lester DeKoster surprised me and got me thinking again about how much God values our daily work. The book is filled with some incredible gems, and I highly recommend it.

—Marcus Goodyear, Senior Editor of The High Calling