Honest Work

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. (Ephesians 4:28)

Old Dooney worked for years at the cash register. One day, a customer came in to find Dooney no longer behind the register. "Ain't you going to fill the void Dooney left?" he asked. "Dooney didn't leave no void," the owner answered.

We've all known of an employee (or two, three or 12) who just occupy the position. It's interesting that the catechism takes on this facet in its analysis of the Seventh Commandment. Steal? Me? Never. Work hard? Me? Not really.

People pay us to take a job and work hard in it. Doing the right thing, at the right time, and doing it right, was an old axiom I once heard early in my career. I'm sure you've heard home spun sounding phrases as well. Did you know that worker engagement, though, across the spectrum of employees is very low? 25 - 35% in industry analyses from groups like Gallup. That means at any given time in the day, you have 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 engaged in the work at hand.

Yet God gave us talents to serve him, and part of the way we serve him is to honor those for whom we work by actually working and engaging those talents daily. To not do so is equivalent to theft of time, resources and lack of using those talents. I'd never really looked at lack of productivity that way, but once I heard it, I thought back to those times I chose to slack, or came in with an attitude and chose to not give "The Man" an honest day's work.

Pray that we teach our children, the next generation, the work ethic necessary to glorify God. Pray we do this through what we do at home and how they see us go to work, day in and day out. Pray in all we do, at home, work, church or in the community, we do it to a level that glorifies God. In Christ' name, Amen.