Work != Doing Whatever You Want To Do

Adrian led a great study on work about a month ago. Anyway, I’m convinced more than ever that there’s absolutely no Biblical basis for the idea that we should do whatever we want to do. I challenge you to find me anything that supports that idea. The closest thing I think (maybe I’m wrong) is where it says it’s a blessing to find joy in your work. But that’s very different from saying you should do what you want. Whereas there is (I believe) significant evidence to the contrary.

I dunno. There’s something screwed up with our generation. Newsweek kind of talked about it last week with a different angle, but our generation is living a life of luxury. We’ve never really faced want or need or tragedy or hardship. It’s just a life of luxury, and all the hallmarks of our generation, the extreme irony and irreverence, constant search for satisfaction, and the absurd emphasis on entertainment are luxuries.

I dunno. Sometimes we want to spend long periods of our lives doing absolutely nothing. It’s one thing if we have no choice. But like, we want to do nothing, to not work and just entertain ourselves. How is this kind of mentality compatible at all with being Christian?

John Piper had this great sermon that I can’t seem to find where he was basically ridiculing those people who retire early and spend all their time on meaningless pursuits, represented by collecting shells. What the heck are they gonna say when they die? “Uh, I collected all these shells for you, God.” Absurd.

But that’s exactly us, I think. Not collecting shells, but other equally meaningless things (e.g. me trying to watch every Jackie Chan movie. I doubt there’s many Kingdom points there). It’s OK to want entertainment, but when we want that to be the majority of what we do, if not all that we do, there’s something seriously screwed up, I think. I dunno, our generation is seriously messed up. That’s my opinion.