thought exercise on Hard Work

In Hillbilly Elegy the author tells of Bob, who worked with him at a tile warehouse with his girlfriend. Bob missed work once a week, was chronically late, and took many breaks each day, lasting ove...

In modern Western culture we place a high value on work, which is fine, but one of the philosophical assumptions that can come with such values is that we assume that we own what we earn or buy. From ...

We get a feel for the goodness of working as creatures with bodies in Leo Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina . In the novel, Constantine Dmitrich Levin is a wealthy landowner in nineteenth-century R...

Worthy goals are generally motivated by something deeper than success. In her conversations with Nobel laureates, [researcher Xiaodong D.] Lin said she has found that “they all have insatiable passion...

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,” said the apostle Paul, “as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Colossians 3:23) ...[H]ow you do anything is how you’ll do everything. Dr. ...

Most of the heroes in the Bible had what we would think of as secular vocations. Isaac developed real estate, Jacob was a rancher, and Joseph was a government official (in charge of agriculture, the e...

John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...

“Good work! You did your job well” (Matt. 25:23 MSG). That phrase reminds me of a story Joe Stowell told me about a time he met the president at the White House. Joe was president of Moody Bible Insti...

You ought to.” “You need to.” “You’ve got to.” “You’re supposed to.” “You better.” Do these sorts of exhortations sound familiar? Perhaps you have heard admonitions such as these from the pulpit, from...

The award-winning and now venerable filmmaker Wim Wenders recently put out a new movie called “Perfect Days.” It was filmed in Japan and follows the daily life of Hirayama, a cleaner of public t...

In 1989, the advertising world welcomed a new icon into the world. It was pink, it was furry, it wore sunglasses, and sported a drum-set. Can you picture him? It’s the Energizer bunny. Television scre...

We think it's difficult to apply for jobs today, what about a hundred years ago when traveling did not mean jumping on a flight or the interstate. Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain once tra...

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control o...

In most cities, statues are reserved for founders and the famous, but in Stockholm, Sweden, things are a bit different, at least in one place. Stockholm’s town hall stands as a masterpiece of architec...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su...

Work is one way, perhaps even the main way, we can glorify God in this life. This may sound confusing if you tend to think of glorifying God as what we do in church when we sing praises to God. No qu...

Studies reveal that 37 percent of Americans take fewer than seven days of vacation a year. In fact, only 14 percent take vacations that last longer than two weeks. Americans take the shortest paid vac...

Ronald Rolheiser recounted an old Jewish folk tale. A young man, aspiring to be holy, approached his rabbi and said, “Rabbi, I think I have achieved sanctity. I fast from sunrise to sundown, work hard...

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives—the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the succe...

The word vocatio can also be translated voice. Man, that says a lot. Your vocation is your voice. The Quakers have a saying about calling that I love: Let your life speak. Finding your calling is abou...

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the benefici...

When I was a child, my father brought home a twelve-year-old boy named Roger, whose parents had died from a drug overdose. There was no one to care for Roger, so my folks decided they would raise him ...

Now, technology is everywhere. I don’t mean just glowing screens and digital devices; I mean the whole apparatus of “easy everywhere” that has come into existence in just over the span of one human li...

Kevin Vanhoozer draws on 1 Corinthians 4 to argue powerfully for reading and teaching the Bible as drama. As Paul talks about his apostolic ministry, he says this: “For, I think, God has exhibite...

American history books contain stories of women who changed society with their hard work and insistence on justice. The women of the suffrage movement clad in white, those active in the temperance mov...

Bruce had served as the most successful CEO in the history of Alaska Airlines. In less than ten years on the job, he matured the company from an obscure, regional carrier to the nationwide brand it is...

Recently we found ourselves around a table with a team of faith leaders from an influential Midwestern church. Their restlessness was palpable. “Peace has been one of our core values for years,” they ...

LeBron James will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the greatest players in basketball history. His stats are consistently jaw-dropping, despite competing in a sport that is usually dominated by you...

My friend Tim is a manager of a small company. Because he often hires people for their first full-time job, he gets to tell new employees about their benefits. One time, Tim was trying to explain to a...

What’s the difference between an employee and a partner? In one word — ownership. One of my first jobs was as a barista at this place called Coffee People. It was the anti-Starbucks of the late ’90s. ...