April 23

Work—a blessing

“Your work shall be rewarded” (2 Chron. 15:7).
“In all labour there is profit” (Prov. 14:23).

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 temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues that the idle never know.
—Charles Kingsley.

Work is given men only, not so much perhaps, because the world needs it. Men make work, but work makes men. An office is not the place for making money, it is a place for making men. A workshop is not a place for making machinery, for fitting engines and turning cylinders; it is a place for making souls; for fitting in the virtues to one’s life; for turning out honest, modest, whole-natured men. So it is with the work of the State or the Church. This is why it never hurries—because it is as much for the worker as the work.

For one man to do too much for the world is in one sense the whole world’s loss. So, it may be, God withdraws His workers, even when their hands are fullest and their souls most ripe: to fill the vacancies with still growing men, and enrich with many for the loss of one.
—Henry Drummond.

Happy we live, when God doth fill
Our hands with work, our hearts with zeal;
For every toil if He enjoin,
Becomes a sacrifice divine,
And like the blessed spirits above,
The more we serve, the more we love.
—Charles Wesley.

When God comforts a man, it is very often by giving him work. The calmness of God comes to the obedient child of God.

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