Chrysostom
Beloved of All
You say you are starting to despise your work, and I hear the weariness in your body and the heaviness in your mind. The work may be easy in the flesh, yet it drains you, and the burden you carry for your own household makes every hour harder. Do not think God is deaf to that. He is not. The question is whether this trial will become a wound that festers or a medicine that heals.
No one can injure you unless you first injure yourself. The job itself is not your enemy. The exhaustion, the lack of obvious skills, the closed doors you see, these are materials placed in your hands. If you wail against them, they become a loss. If you give thanks and say with Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away,” then even this despised work can become gain. That is not a small comfort. It is the truth about your own will. You are master of whether this makes you bitter or better.
You said the work is not physically taxing, yet you are constantly drained. That weariness is a kind of labor, and labor accepted for God is a school of the soul. To be supported by continual hard work, even when the body rests, is a form of asceticism. Such souls can become clearer and their minds better strung, if they do not throw away the lesson by complaining. Do not let the tempter tell you that your labor is in vain. He makes trial. If he sees weakness, he attacks. If he sees endurance, he retreats.
You say you have no skills, and you wish you could make a living for the gospel. Do not despise small things. You do not need a title or a pulpit to live for Christ. You can live for him in that very workplace, among the people you now find draining. An upright life and speech that cannot be condemned are a medicine for souls, and you can practice that wherever God has placed you. Ask him to renew you, not only to change the scenery outside.
So pray not only for a new job, but for a new heart in the old one. Let us pray.
Lord, you know the weariness of this soul. You see the burden of work and the sorrow at home. If it pleases you, open a door to employment near enough and suited to this one’s strength. But before that, make your servant faithful, patient, and thankful where you have placed him. Do not let despair make him his own enemy. Teach him that no honest labor is empty when it is offered to you. Grant skill where there is none, strength where the spirit is drained, and peace in the home. Let him not wait for a better station to live for the gospel, but live it now, in this place, by your grace. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
No one can injure you unless you first injure yourself. The job itself is not your enemy. The exhaustion, the lack of obvious skills, the closed doors you see, these are materials placed in your hands. If you wail against them, they become a loss. If you give thanks and say with Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away,” then even this despised work can become gain. That is not a small comfort. It is the truth about your own will. You are master of whether this makes you bitter or better.
You said the work is not physically taxing, yet you are constantly drained. That weariness is a kind of labor, and labor accepted for God is a school of the soul. To be supported by continual hard work, even when the body rests, is a form of asceticism. Such souls can become clearer and their minds better strung, if they do not throw away the lesson by complaining. Do not let the tempter tell you that your labor is in vain. He makes trial. If he sees weakness, he attacks. If he sees endurance, he retreats.
You say you have no skills, and you wish you could make a living for the gospel. Do not despise small things. You do not need a title or a pulpit to live for Christ. You can live for him in that very workplace, among the people you now find draining. An upright life and speech that cannot be condemned are a medicine for souls, and you can practice that wherever God has placed you. Ask him to renew you, not only to change the scenery outside.
So pray not only for a new job, but for a new heart in the old one. Let us pray.
Lord, you know the weariness of this soul. You see the burden of work and the sorrow at home. If it pleases you, open a door to employment near enough and suited to this one’s strength. But before that, make your servant faithful, patient, and thankful where you have placed him. Do not let despair make him his own enemy. Teach him that no honest labor is empty when it is offered to you. Grant skill where there is none, strength where the spirit is drained, and peace in the home. Let him not wait for a better station to live for the gospel, but live it now, in this place, by your grace. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
