The winds of change quickly blew in for our small family of four in 1976. We packed up our brick home at 1007 McGregor St. in Bloomington, Illinois and moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming to serve in a lifelong pastoral position for the past 45 years after nearly 10 years of service. What a change in the landscape, from green to brown! However, God had a plan. He nudged my heart that everything he did is beautiful.
So I started formulating a plan. I started charging my two precious daughters and my adventurous wife every Saturday. We used our 1970 Chevrolet Caprice for wilderness adventures. It was our makeshift jeep. Sweetwater County began to reveal amazing secrets to us.
We found Little Mountain. It looked just like Yellowstone, only nicer. Below the mountain, Current Creek, we found our favorite trout fishing spot for years. White Mountain revealed its springs and elk forests along with stocks of healthy aspens that still hide large billy mule deer. The Red Desert Sand Dunes were like the greatest beach fun my girls could ever hope for. The Flaming Gorge, Big Firehole in particular, surprised me with some of the best fishing I’ve ever experienced, even in recent years.
When God gave us more children, we had five daughters and two sons. It has taken work to get to know this country we love, and we have often broken sweat as a family to enjoy God’s beautiful creation here. In order to find time to play, we often have to work hard to make our game possible.
Who are you sweating for How much welding capital do we have for each other? If we do not learn the sacred meaning of work and see ourselves as workers, we will not know much about the sacred meaning of time and life. Neither of us ever manages all of the projects we set out to do.
We recently completed an outdoor project in our yard that required a lot of sweat, but it’s finally finished after two solid years of sweat and work. More projects are in the works for the coming week to seal our decks. None of us will die without leaving behind some important unfinished symphonies like Beethoven did.
It is difficult to learn to work and work up a sweat, but it is even more difficult to try to get away from work. I often see people trying to avoid work. It’s the most strenuous activity there is.
Thomas Alva Edison said, “I never did anything by accident. yet one of my inventions came about by chance; You came from work … I’m glad the eight-hour day wasn’t invented when I was a young man. If my life had been eight hours long, I couldn’t have achieved much. “
In essence, finding our job or calling means finding the meaning of our life. No task is too small to be done well. Every job we do is worth doing our best. None of us successfully climb with our hands in our pockets.
The Farmer’s Almanac says it well: “Actions speak louder than words – but not so often.” In essence, we make our love visible by sweating for others’ justice or breaking the sweat of others. If we cannot work with love in our hearts, it is better for us to remain inactive than to work for others with contempt or bitterness.
On September 21, 1977, a joke in the Wall Street Journal read: “Keep your feet on your desk and you will find someone to fill your shoes.” Today I read: “The safest way to get a job done is to give it to a busy man. He’ll let his secretary do it. “
Work is a bit like riding a bike. We won’t fall off easily if we keep pedaling. Our life expectancy is often related to the fact that we continue to find work. An anonymous poet said, “Sitting still and wishing doesn’t make a person great. The good lord sends the fishing, but we have to dig the bait. “
Maude Louise Ray wrote some great words in 1913 that I love to sing. The poem is entitled “My Task”. Here are the words: “To love someone more every day, to help a wandering child to find his way, to reflect on a noble thought and to pray and smile when evening falls – that is my job. To follow the truth while the blind seek light, to do my best from daybreak to night, to keep my heart fit for its holy sight and to answer when it calls, is my job. And then, one by one, when faith has finished its function on earth, my Savior will meet and worship Master at Master’s feet. This crowns my task within the jasper walls. “
God doesn’t give us gold if we don’t dig for it. He camps the mounds full of marble, but God never builds cathedrals in which we can worship him. He leaves that to us. It takes work. Let’s work up a sweat today; if we still can.
Richard Carlson is the pastor of the Rock Springs Evangelical Free Church. Of his more than 53 years of service, he has done pastor work on site for the past 45 years.
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