p. 9 | The Joy of Service by I. H. EVANS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 3, 1914

The Joy of Service

By I. H. EVANS

We frequently hear people complaining because there are so many things demanding their attention, and wishing that the work was finished, and there was nothing more to do. At first thought, we might be inclined to consider such a state of idleness desirable; but when we stop to think about it soberly, we shall surely conclude that it is not a condition really to be desired.

In the first place, God made man to be active, not to be idle. In the morning of creation, when the work was finished and God had placed Adam and Eve over all things, he said to them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” In this is the thought of service.

Had man not sinned, he would have been able to subdue the earth; but when sin entered the world, and man lost his innocence and was driven from his Eden home, God pronounced a curse upon the earth. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” The curse multiplied man’s labors, and created all the unfavorable conditions making labor oftentimes painful, oppressive, and frequently lowering it to drudgery. But work is not a “penal clause of the original curse. There was labor, bright, healthful, unfatiguing, in unfallen Paradise.”

Everywhere in the Scriptures we find work approved. In the law of Jehovah, we read, “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work.” Even the Son of God bore this testimony, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”

Saul, while making a tedious journey, was called to be the king of Israel; David was anointed king in Saul’s stead while shepherding his father’s flocks; Elisha was called to be a prophet while plowing in the field. Even our Saviour was a carpenter, and we believe he, like other men, labored for his daily bread. The Gentile apostle, whose evangelical labors seemed almost beyond endurance, many times helped to maintain himself by physical labor while preaching the gospel in the great cities and commercial centers of the East.

All nature is active. The heavenly bodies are ever in motion. The waters of the sea are ever in the ebb or flow. The air we breathe is purified by change. All life is active. The animal and vegetable kingdoms live and thrive by doing.

Labor is of God. It is one of the unspeakable blessings given to humanity. It ennobles the soul, stimulates the physical being, and makes man more akin to his Maker. It has been said: “No man is base who does a true work; for true action is the highest being. No man is miserable that does a true work; for right action is the truest happiness. No man is isolated that does a true work; for useful action is the highest harmony: it is the highest harmony with nature and with souls, it is living association with men, and it is practical fellowship with God.”

Idleness is ever a hindrance to the highest type of manhood. It begets degeneracy, and leads to sin. The wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah is attributed to idleness and superabundance. “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”

Some think that labor is undignified and cheapens the reputation, but many of the greatest men of the ages have been the most arduous laborers. Milton said of himself: “By labor and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life) joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes as they should not willingly let it die.” And Carlyle declared: “Labor is life.” “Work is of a religious nature; work is of a brave nature, which it is the aim of all religion to be. Blessed is he who has found his work: let him ask no other blessedness.” Sir Joshua Reynolds said, “God does not give excellence to men but as the reward of labor.” And Beecher wrote: “No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work withal, for those who will.”

There is great difference in how we work, as wide a distance as between joy in service and wearing drudgery. To the man who loves his work, labor is not hard. He gives to it all his strength, yet doing his work is his delight. Labor, when joyfully done, is recreation. Drudgery is doing any service under protest and without heart. Henry Giles spoke truly when he said: “Man must work. That is as certain as the sun. But he may work grudgingly, or he may work gratefully; he may work as a man, or he may work as a machine. He cannot always choose his work, but he can do it in a generous temper, and with an uplooking heart. There is no work so rude that he may not exalt it; there is no work so impassive that he may not breathe a soul into it; there is no work so dull that he may not enliven it.”

The Christian, of all men, should enjoy his labors. For, as Carlyle wrote, “There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in labor. . . . The real desire to get work done will lead one more and more to truth, to nature’s appointments and regulations, which are truth.” Paul gave the keynote to true service when he said, “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”

Surely we who live in the time of the finishing of God’s work on earth, should enter his service and perform each duty with glad hearts. It matters not what our task may be, on the farm, in the home, teaching, or in the ministry, we should work joyfully. Since God has given to each his work, and it is his will that that work should be done to his glory, how can we glorify our Maker more than to do, with all our might and with all our hearts, the work he has assigned to us?

“Labor is sweet, for Thou hast toiled, And care is light, for thou hast cared; Let not our works with self be soiled, Nor in unsimple ways ensnared. Through life’s long day and death’s dark night, O gentle Jesus! be our light.”

I. H. EVANS.