Your Work Is Not In Vain

Our friend, author and Academy instructor, Jessica Thompson was teaching the Restoration portion of our The Big Story course. As she shared with us the importance of knowing how the story ends, I was reminded of the hope we have in Christ. Not just a hope for the future, but a hope for today and now.

I especially enjoyed the quote she shared from NT Wright about how our work is not in vain…

“What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are — strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself — accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and make the name of Jesus honored in the world — all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.”

– N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Chew on that for a little bit.  Try inserting some action from your day into the paragraph above.

“…every email I send this morning to answer, help, or instruct…

“…every contract I work on…

“…every customer I serve…

“…each skill I teach my child…” or “….every skill I help my patient re-acquire…

…will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.”

Then pair it with a reading from Psalm 90:17:

“May the favor of the Lord out God rest on us;
establish the work of our hand for us–
yes, establish the work of our hands.”

And simply because this is one of my favorite songs from the Porter’s Gate Project:

Establish the Work of Our Hands