Every morning my dad's alarm rings at 4 o'clock. He gets up, downs several cups of black coffee and scans the paper. Then, grabbing the lunch Mom made the night before, he closes the door and starts his hour-long drive to the plastics factory where he's always worked, at least as far back as my memory goes. He's been in this field nearly his entire life. It's where he met his bride and, most likely, from where he will retire.

If he ever really retires, that is. I think Dad would be lost without a place to go every morning. You see, Dad is a worker. And he's not unique--God fashioned us all to labor. "Then I realized," Solomon recounted, "that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him--for this is his lot."¹

The average person spends 60 percent of his or her life working.² And according to a 1991 survey by the Barna Research Group, the numbers are rising--when asked how they spent time that year compared to the previous, every age category under 65 reported increased hours at work. That's too much time to spend doing something we feel God is at best indifferent about and at worst disappointed with.

Despite how it might seem at times, work is not a result of the curse. Labor and toil are intrinsically good--and they are good for us. "When God put Adam and Eve in the garden, He did not put them there to sit and look at each other and to hold hands," said author A.W. Tozer. "He said they were to take care of the garden."³

Remember, also, that God didn't leave Adam and Eve with a simple, "Do something." God gave His people guidelines on how they were to do the job, and they haven't yet expired. When we work according to His standards we bring the aroma of Christ--that is, a lingering sense of His presence--with us to the workplace.

As Christ radiates from within us, others see a higher standard. Not only has God called me to write, He wants me to honor my boss, and love my co-workers, and He's already determined my vocational success. These roots of truth haven't always run deeply in my life. After many long conversations with God and a little life experience, they're growing farther down, bit by bit.

As a teenager I could be found inside Scott's grocery store in Fort Wayne, Ind., ringing up groceries for hours upon hours. Inside me existed a struggle to bridge seemingly disparate areas--my job and my relationship with God. I thought surely God wanted me doing something more eternally significant than doubling coupons. For years, however, the link remained elusive. I saw time at Scott's as a means to receive a paycheck. Period. I left thoughts of serving God in the locker with my coat.

"But as Jesus made clear, divided service produces inner conflict," explains author Larry Peabody. "The person who loves organized Christian activity will soon see everyday work as an interruption to his 'real' mission, and the person who is devoted to his ordinary job will come to regard religious work as a burdensome duty. No one can serve two masters."⁴

My problem working at Scott's came down to my perspective. I viewed my job through human eyes rather than through God's. Had I understood that who I was concerned God much more than what I did, I would have been of much more value to Him--and to those around me. Perhaps I would have viewed the woman needing to write a check in the cash-only lane as someone deserving compassion rather than someone to talk about after she left. Perhaps those with whom I worked would have been able to say they knew better what mercy in action looked like. Maybe they would have said they encountered Christ that day.

Most likely God has given you a very different "garden" in which to be His co-worker. Nevertheless, we all return to the same guidelines. Here at Worldwide Challenge we trust that this section will help you to know more clearly what He has said about you and your job, so that whether in boardrooms and classrooms, retail stores or grocery stores or anywhere else, our co-workers won't miss the aroma of Christ.

1. Ecclesiastes 5:18 (New International Version); 2. Doug Sherman and William Hendricks, Your Work Matters to God (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1992), p. 16; 3. A.W. Tozer: An Anthology, ed. Harry Verploegh (Camp Hill, Pa.: Christian Publications, 1984), p. 187; 4. Larry Peabody, Secular Work is Full-Time Service (Fort Washington, Pa.: Christian Literature Crusade, Inc.; 1974), pp. 12,13.