The world needs young men who will devote their great energy to meaningful work, who will not follow a whining culture, who will stand out, stand up and work hard.
If you want a meaningful, worthwhile life, you must work hard. This is true for anyone, though my focus here is young men. Our culture encourages you to laziness, and, then, mocks and caricatures men as lazy. You must fight against that tendency and disprove that stereotype.
Biblical Texts
First let me illustrate that this is point is found in the Bible. Here are some key texts.
A key biblical theme is that hard work is godly, and laziness is sin.
Part of what it looks like for you to be godly men is for you to be hard workers- hard workers at what you like to do and hard workers at what you don’t really like to do, but you know have to do. It won’t do to say, “I like this class so I’ll work hard in it. But I don’t like that one, so I won’t do much. The question is not, “What do you like to do?” but “What are you responsible and committed to do?” A crucial point is owning your responsibility. Is this something I’m supposed to do? Is this something people are depending on me for? Is it part of my duty? If so, then I work hard in it.
It is odd to me, now as an older man, that the word lazy in our culture can have a positive or at least neutral sense. It wasn’t that way when I was a kid. If you called a man lazy, you could have a fistfight. I saw a glib reference to laziness in a man lead to great anger and potential trouble. To call a man lazy was to assault his manhood. Now people commonly say, “I’m just being lazy.” You see social media posts celebrating laziness. Don’t say that. People often mean that they are resting and are grateful for it. Rest is good and necessary. But laziness is sin. Rest is appropriate after hard work. Laziness is the avoidance of work. So, guard your language. Don’t celebrate or endorse laziness. If one of you says, “I’m just being lazy,” another could say, “Yeah. I’m just doing a little robbery myself.” Don’t let yourself make peace with laziness any more than you would with any other sin. Don’t let laziness be a positive thing in your mind or something associated with you.
Made for Work
The fact is, we were made to work. You see that in the garden. When God created mankind, we were given a task to do. We were given work to do. But if you listen to us, it sounds like we think work is a curse. It isn’t. Work was there before sin entered. The curse came in because of sin and frustrated our work. Now our work often fails or deteriorates. But working is not a bad thing. Despite what the world around us says, our goal is not to try to get away from work. One of the great cultural lies is that if you don’t have to do anything, then you’re blessed. No, that’s when you’re bored. You hear people say, “I just want to rest,” and then turn right around and say, “I’m bored.” How does that go together? It doesn’t.
It is a good thing that God has given you work to do, and what you need is to figure out what that work is. But let’s not make that overly mystical either. I’ll be helpful and tell you one thing God has given you to do. Ready? For one thing, “this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess 4:3). So pursue holiness. You know some other basic commands in scripture. But here’s another thing. All of you here are enrolled in college. So, we have one of two options here. One, God doesn’t want you here and you’re in rebellion against him by being here. That’s a logical, potential option. I’m going to assume that’s probably not the case, though. So, if you’re here in obedience to God, then you must live under proper authority. You have put yourself under the leadership at this university, and it says you must take certain classes, some classes you choose, some you don’t. You’re in a specific class, and in that class you’re given assignments. Well, part of the will of God for you, part of the work that God’s given you to do, is just do your assignments. You may say, “I don’t like these assignments.” I don’t really care. Do the work you’ve been given to do. Again, you may say, “I don’t know how this is going to benefit me.” Neither do I, but we don’t know the future. Just do what is in front of you. Oftentimes we mess up our future by trying to figure out what that is instead of just doing what is right in front of you. Do the tasks you now have and every task you do today is preparing you for the future that is coming. We can’t know the future. We can simply faithfully perform the task right here in front of us. That is encouraging. That is freeing. Just have at it. As 19th century British writer, Charles Kingsley, stated, “Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.”[1]
So, we must throw off the culture of laziness which seeks to seduce us and pursue something different. If you want to be godly, you must be a hard worker. J. Oswald Sanders, in his book Spiritual Leadership, wrote,
“The spirit of the welfare state does not produce leaders. If a Christian is not willing to rise early and work late, to expend greater effort in diligent study and faithful work, that person will not change a generation. Fatigue is the price of leadership. Mediocrity is the result of never being tired.”[2]
I love that quote! It is directly counter to the spirit of the age. The spirit of the age says, “Oh man, you’re tired. Don’t do anything.” Or it shows up with “I’m tired” being the answer anytime someone asks how you are doing. It almost seems like that many people, if you startled them, the first thing that would come out of their mouth would be “I’m tired,” or “I’m busy.” It is almost what you are supposed to say. Then the conversation goes something like this:
“I’m just so busy.”
Me too. I have a test and a paper this week.
Oh yeah, I got a test and two papers.
Oh yeah, I got two tests and three papers, and my papers are longer than yours.
We end up with this weird thing with people battling over who has it the hardest. It’s a common thing for guys to press on one another, but previously the arguments would have been about who could accomplish more. Now it is about who has a harder time, who is busier, who is more tired. That’s just not helpful at all. We are fighting for victim status, and that will kill your soul. Stop it. I have decided for myself that when people ask how I am doing there are two things I will not say: “I am busy,” or “I am tired.” I am not going to contribute to this complaining spirit of laziness. I will tell close friends of struggles, but I have removed these two comments from my options for common response.
In fact, if I know you well enough, and I ask you how you are doing, and you say to me, “I’m busy,” I’m going to say, “Good! I’m glad that God has given you work to do. I’m so glad that your life is not being wasted. He has given you gifts and ability and energy, especially as a young man. I am delighted that there are avenues for you to pour out your soul!” Or, if you say, “I’m tired,” I will say, “Good, good! Let’s wait here just a minute and tell me about some of those things that you have expended your life energy on this week. I am eager to hear!”
If you are tired, good. You’ve had the opportunity to give yourself to something, so get some rest because it’s coming again tomorrow. You are busy. Good. Now, sometimes we’re really busy talking about how busy we are. Just stop that and carry on with what’s useful. Or we’re busy because we need to get some priorities straight. We need to say, “If God has called me here, then he’s called me to be a student. So, my student work needs to go way up in the priority list.” Some other things may need to fall away for a time so that you can do what is most necessary. You may need to say no to some things that you would like to do in order to be able to do all that you’re supposed to do. This is a time of training. God is at work right now preparing you for the years that will come after. Don’t skimp on your training. These days right here are what are going to allow you to go further and have more impact. And making a difference is what you are longing for. I don’t even know all of you, but I know this because I know how God made us.
You are longing to know that your life matters. You are longing to accomplish something that has significance, and you can’t do that if you don’t work hard. To lead means to work hard, partially just because leading people is hard work and also because if you’re going to lead, you’ve got to be an example of hard work.
“Whining Whittles Away the Will to Work”
If we decide that we will embrace hard work, then we need to beware of a complaining spirit. My phrase for this is: Whining whittles away at the will to work. You’re either going to work or you’re going to whine. Again, the culture will encourage you to whine by giving excuses for why you can’t work hard and blaming others and circumstances for your failures. Now there’s a difference between whining and talking about real problems. We all do have real problems. We’re all struggling with sin. We have brokenness around us, and you need places to talk about these things.
But I think we all know there’s a difference between that and whining. Proper sharing of problems centers on seeking improvement. Whining centers on gaining attention and avoiding responsibility. When we whine, we are saying, notice me, pity me and don’t expect much of me. And part of my task before God for your benefit is to blow that away and say, “No. I will not do that. I will notice you, but I will not pity you. I will give you the dignity not to expect less of you, but I will do my best to call you up, to say, Come on. Let’s rise up to the things that God has for us to do.”
God by his spirit will empower you and enable you. Step out, venture with the Lord, and see what he will do. Once you take that step toward self-absorption, everything readily takes on the hue of a self-confirming, self-congratulating, and self-defeating bias. This is deadly and once well-established is very hard to recover from. Avoid this like you would something which promises physical harm. Flee from self-pity, despite the culture’s rabid affirmation of it. Such self-pity is the path to emasculation and despair. Fight against that. Fight for one another against the spirit of self-absorbed avoidance of responsibility.
Come alongside a struggling brother. If he begins to make his struggle the center of everything including his own identity, tell him, “I think you’re going down a wrong path. Let’s not have this. Let’s stop this.” We know Bible says iron sharpens iron (Prov 27:17). Mud does not sharpen mud. Iron sharpens because iron is firm. Iron is hard. You don’t help one another if you’re always soft with one another. We need a challenge. We don’t need jerks, but we do need a challenge. We all have struggles. We all have hardships, and some more than others. Just don’t think that’s unusual. We still have our job to do.
A global and historical perspective can help us a lot. If we were more aware of the rest of the world right now, we would not see our challenges as so large. If we were more aware of what people in the past endured it would shame our self-pity and stiffen our spines. I love reading history, so I regularly come across stories that do this for me. I’ll only give you one.
Recently, I read a book about one of the guides for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Among the many amazing stories in this book, one told about Captain Jedidiah Smith’s encounter with a grizzly bear. Walking through a thicket with his men, Smith came face to face with the grizzly. The book, citing a firsthand account, tells the story.
‘As he emerged from the thicket, he and the bear met face to face. Grizzly did not hesitate a moment but sprang on the captain, taking him by the head first.’ The bear took ‘nearly all of his head in his capacious mouth, close to the left eye on one side and close to his right ear on the other, and laid the skull bare to near the crown of the head, leaving a white streak where his teeth passed. One of his ears was torn from his head out to the outer rim,’ and several ribs were shattered.
Despite the excruciating pain, Smith demanded that someone take needle and thread and sew his bloody head back together. After some hesitation among the men, Clyman stepped up to the task and proceeded in his first ever attempt at surgery. Smith remained conscious throughout and provided instructions. At last, Clyman came to the dangling ear and announced there was nothing he could do for it. Smith insisted that he proceed, so the reluctant surgeon took the needle in one hand and the ear in the other, ‘stitching it through and through, and over and over, laying the lacerated parts together’ as best as he could.[3]
After this, Smith climbed on his horse and rode with his men to the nearest water source a mile away. He recuperated fully and for eight more years, carried his scars as he explored the West from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Eight years later he died in an Indian attack.
Such stories could be multiplied. Smith didn’t give up. He didn’t say, “I’ve done enough so I’m quitting now.” He did what he had to do and kept going. We need such examples to stir us to action and perseverance. Such stories challenge me to say to myself, “Quit whining. If God has me here, if he hasn’t taken me home, he has work for me to do. I want to get it done.” I want to hear the Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I want to know that my life has been spent doing the tasks he gave me to do.
What will enable us to persevere like this, work hard and not get so self-absorbed is to put our eyes on Christ. Dostoevsky said, “man is fond of reckoning up his troubles but does not count his joys.”[4] Focus more on the joys the Lord has brought your way, realizing they are all evidences of his grace. That will cause us to put our eyes on others and be more concerned about what’s going on in others’ lives than just our own (Phil 2:1-30). Flannery O’Connor, the great Catholic writer, while suffering from the lupus which would end her life at age 39, said, “You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.”[5] That’s a good word for us.
The world’s going to tell you, make sure everybody knows how hard you have it and don’t let anybody get more out of you than they should. In work situations, the world will push you not give any more than you have to. And I’ll tell you, I don’t want to hire you if that’s the way you think. We should be seeking to accomplish all that the Lord could give us to do. Focusing on ourselves is the path to misery. It’s actually the path to misery for you because the more you stare inside, the worse it’s going to get. It is also the path to misery for the people around you. If we get our eyes off ourselves and invest ourselves, if we’re more concerned about working hard than being a victim, then we can go forward.
Practical points
Let me conclude with two practical points. If you’re going to work hard on something, be on time. This is one of the major complaints from employers about college students or people shortly out of college. So, be on time. What do I mean by being on time? If eight o’clock is when your work starts, somebody is paying you to work from eight o’clock on. That doesn’t mean you show up at 8:02 or 8:5 or 8:10. That doesn’t mean you show up at 8:00. You need to show up by 7:45 to get situated, get your coffee or whatever else, and be ready to start work at eight. We should be the most active, ready to go kind of folks and not the folks who are trying to get away with something or to give as little as we can. You know what they call the people who try to get away with giving as little as they can? Unemployed.
Secondly, you’re being paid to work. So, if you take somebody’s money without doing the work or by skimming off their time, you’re stealing. Make it obvious that you earn your pay. I want to be able to say confidently that I’m worth what I’m paid. We do this by demonstrating we are working hard and we’re getting things done. If you get promoted, you’ll be paid more. You’ll be asked to do more. You want to be the kind of person that folks say, “I don’t know what we’re paying this guy, but we’re getting a deal for it.” That’s who you want to be. If you’re worried about doing more than they’re paying for, you won’t be this kind of person. Believe in what you’re doing and give your all for it for the sake of the kingdom.
The world needs young men who will devote their great energy to meaningful work, who will not follow a whining culture, who will stand out, stand up and work hard. As the 19th century pastor Theodore Cuyler said to new converts, “Life is not a frolic, and the service of our crucified Lord is not child’s play.”[6] Indeed, a life of service to the Lord is much more challenging and much more rewarding. We need men who will embody the spirit in this great poem by Robert Service.
“Carry On!”
It’s easy to fight when everything’s right,
And you’re mad with thrill and the glory;
It’s easy to cheer when victory’s near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It’s a different song when everything’s wrong,
When you’re feeling infernally mortal;
When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:
Carry on! Carry on!
There isn’t much punch in your blow.
You are glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You are muddy and bloody, but never you mind.
Carry on! Carry on!
You haven’t the ghost of a show.
It’s looking like death, but while you’ve a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!
And so in the strife of the battle of life
It’s easy to fight when you’re winning;
It’s easy to slave, and starve and be brave,
When the dawn of success is beginning.
But the man who can meet despair and defeat
With a cheer, there’s the man of God’s choosing;
The man who can fight to Heaven’s own height
Is the man who can fight when he’s losing.
Carry on! Carry on!
Thing never were looming so black.
But show that you haven’t a cowardly streak,
And though you’re unlucky you never are weak.
Carry on! Carry on!
Brace up for another attack.
It’s looking like hell, but – you never can tell.
Carry on, old man! Carry on!
There are some who drift out in the desert of doubt
And some who in brutishness wallow;
There are others, I know, who in piety go
Because of a Heaven to follow.
But to labor with zest, and to give of your best,
For the sweetness and joy of the giving;
To help folks along with a hand and a song;
Why, there’s the real sunshine of living.
Carry on! Carry on!
Fight the good fight and true;
Believe in your mission, greet life with a cheer;
There’s big work to do, and that’s why you are here.
Carry on! Carry on!
Let the world be the better for you;
And at last when you die, let this be your cry!
Carry on, my soul! Carry on![7]
By God’s grace, be such men! Venture forth into what God has called you to do, and “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9; ESV).
This essay originated as a talk to a gathering of young men at Union University in Jackson, TN. A portion of it was adapted and published as “Dear Graduates, Work Hard,” Baptist Press, May 17, 2024.
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Notes:
[1] Charles Kingsley. I have been unable to locate the original source of the quote though it is attributed to him in a wide range of sources dating back to the first decade of the 1900’s.
[2] Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership, (Moody, 2007) 119.
[3] David Weston Marshall, Mountain Man, John Colter, the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and the Call of the American West (New York: The Countryman Press, 2019), 152-153.
[4] Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground, in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, 5th Continental Edition, ed. Maynard Mack (New York: W. W> Norton & Company, 1987), 1915.
[5] Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1979), 453.
[6] Theodore L. Cuyler, Newly Enlisted: A Series of Talks with Young Converts (American Tract Society, 1888), 29.
[7] Robert Service, “Carry On!,” in Collected Poems of Robert Service (New York: Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1940), 351-352.
The featured image is “The Bird-Catcher” (1870) by Vasily Grigorevich Perov, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.