“…my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.” —Isaiah 49:4
It was on my fifth trip to the new Target that I became convinced a particular cashier was a Christian. What was it about her? She was efficient (her line always moved at a decent pace.) She was courteous. She was friendly. These all were nice things. But the thing that convinced me she was a Christian was the joy that infused her work. In fact, I became so convinced that one day I decided to test my theory.
“I’ve noticed you seem to bring a lot of joy to your work. May I ask what it is that gives you such joy?” Her response (said with a big smile), “I’m a Christian and it is Jesus Christ who gives me my joy!”
The last three decades have seen an exponential demand for jobs in the creative sector. Indeed, some are so desperate to find “creative” employment that they will take on demanding internships with no pay. But nobody works in the service industry for free. Jobs as a cashier, food server and housekeeper are viewed as less rewarding. Yet the joyful cashier I met at Target was telling a different story. Rather than her work hampering her joy, her joy transformed her job.
How does this kind of joy at work happen? How is it possible to maintain consistent joy in the face of monotonous, discouraging, or difficult work?
The prophet Isaiah experienced his own challenges in his labor as a prophet. In Isaiah 49:4 the prophet reveals his confrontation with the difficulty of his work:
I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the LORD,
and my reward with my God.”
Isaiah’s work was difficult, and he found little success. He was able to see above and beyond his work to a greater cause and reward. This verse shows us how. Rather than tying his sense of joy to the discouraging circumstances of his work, Isaiah approached his work such that its “cause is with the Lord.” In other words, despite the challenges and discouragement of his work, there was an entirely different way for Isaiah to engage work. And this left him able to push through the seemingly feckless and inevitably fickleness of the work itself. This happens when, like Isaiah, we are not working for ourselves or others, but for the love of God. And those who master this become “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).
“...for Nicholas, even the smallest act of work held the potential to be an act of worshipful love for God.”
One of the most famous examples of such joyful work is that of the 17th-century dishwasher and kitchen aid Nicholas Herman (a.k.a. “Brother Lawrence”). Nicholas had a lowly service job. Yet people could not forget the great joy with which he approached the simplest of tasks. How was he able to maintain such infectious joy as the challenges of work ebbed and flowed? Nicholas reveals his secret in the spiritual classic, The Practice of the Presence of God. Here Nicholas gives his own description of how he has learned to tie his work to a larger cause. As Nicholas states, “It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.” In other words, for Nicholas, even the smallest act of work held the potential to be an act of worshipful love for God. As he practiced doing the smallest of actions as an act of worship Nicholas reached the vigorous repose of those who work with great joy.
What about us? As we celebrate the coming of our Lord may we all the more enter into the full measure of joy he came to give us in our work!
“Joy to the world, the Lord has come!”
Robert Covolo is a Cultural Theologian and Author of Fashion Theology. He is also on staff here at the Center for Faith + Work Los Angeles, serving as our Director of Vocational Discipleship.