Mom Heart Moments #176

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

FROM THE TIME MY CHILDREN could do chores, they heard mom talk about work. I knew that one of the most vital qualities I could pass on to them would be a good attitude about work. A healthy, biblical attitude in this area would influence their chosen vocation in life, their relationships with authorities, and even the harmony of their own future homes and families.

A good work ethic is central to a whole and well-rounded life; embracing work, in whatever form it would take in their lives, would enable my children to flourish as adults. The apostle Paul said it clearly: “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men” (Colossians 3:23).

Unfortunately, work is not a neutral term —it comes to us weighed down with negative associations and connotations. We’ve been taught by culture, and by our sinful and self-centered natures, that work is bad, an annoying distraction from our desire to enjoy the pleasures of life. It’s something to be avoided and minimized, and, if necessary, endured.

But work was part of God’s created order in Genesis 1 and 2, before sin’s curse in Genesis 3 made it hard and onerous. When God called His completed creation “very good” (1:31), that declaration included work. God designed us originally to take pleasure in work —to create, subdue, and bring order and meaning to all that we are entrusted with by Him. God worked to create the world, and that quality of His image is also in us as His image-bearing creatures. As mothers, created in His image, it is our privilege to model and teach a healthy attitude about work to our children.

Sometimes I need to check on my own attitude about work! Does yours need an adjustment today?