For the Love of Labor

Would you say you have a healthy mentality about work? Yes, no, not sure? Let’s chat…

Harvest 2024 has kicked off here at Tomlinson Farms. I took some lunch to the Beloved Farmer and snapped our traditional combine pictures. (Note to self, find them all and have a little photo book made of the two of us over the years. It would be fun to watch us, ahem, mature. Please and thank you.)

Phil and I have seen every side of this farming thing. Good years, average years, and years like this one, where the commodity prices are depressingly low, and fear stalks every row with ugly whispers. But, God. The words of Psalm 25:25 have comforted us in many a season and added holy steel to our spiritual spines. “I was young, and now I am old, and I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.” We loved that verse before our own years began to mount, and it’s only grown sweeter with time.

One of the beautiful things about walking with God, and there are so many that recounting them always leaves treasure untold, but one of the benefits of trusting Him over the years is the testimonies that begin to mount up of His faithfulness.

“Remember when the freeze hit that baby corn and we were sure we had lost it, but it survived, thrived even?”

“Remember when we needed a boat to navigate the fields because of the flooding?”

“Remember that year the Hurricane blew all that beautiful rice down, right after we had drained the water off of it for harvesting? What was the name of that storm?”

We don’t remember. The storms, the floods, the yields. They’re all memories, now. Some that comfort, others that sting. Together they witness of God’s faithfulness.

But I asked you a question earlier, didn’t I? I haven’t forgotten.

With Labor Day Weekend coming up, I wanted to encourage all of us to rethink the way we look at work. I think we get this one wrong, more than right. We talk about work like it’s something we do around our real lives. I’ve even heard believers refer to it as part of the curse. Not true, friend. God tasked man with being fruitful, with multiplying our resources and cultivating the ground before the Fall. He gave man work to do when life was lived with Him in the garden, and life was good. It’s true, the Fall contributed a layer of struggle and sweat equity that didn’t exist before, but it’s clear that our good good Father valued labor in the beginning, and He values it today. God give us work to do, and He calls to us to seek Him while we go about it.

When we “live for the weekend” or live for retirement, we mimic the culture of a world that doesn’t know Him. That mindset leaves us swallowing the enemy’s lies and squandering the gift of life.  There’s a better way, God’s way.

Let’s quit acting like life happens around work and glorify Him in the middle of it. To God be the glory, great things He has done.

Hugs,
Shellie