I just finished reading Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work. I highly recommend it. Here are eleven quotes from the book to give you a taste of what's in this book."A job is a vocation only if someone else calls you to do it and you do it for them rather than for yourself. And so our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests." (2)
"The fact that God put work in paradise is startling to us because we so often think of work as a necessary evil or even punishment. Yet we do not see work brought into our human story after the fall of Adam, as part of the resulting brokenness and curse; it is part of the blessedness of the garden of God." (23)
"Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality; it is not simply medicine but food for our soul. Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually." (23)
"[God] could have just spoken the world and created millions of people in thousands of human settlements, but he didn't. He made it our job to develop and build this society." (44)
"The question regarding our choice of work is no longer 'What will make me the most money and give me the most status?' The question must now be 'How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God's will and of human need?'" (57)
"Since we already have in Christ the things other people work for - salvation, self-worth, a good conscience, and peace - now we may work simply to love God and our neighbors." (64)
"You should expect to be regularly frustrated in your work even though you may be in exactly the right vocation." (87)
"Work can convince you that you are working hard for your family and friends while you are being seduced through ambition to neglect them." (100)
"As Bible scholar Bruce Waltke points out, the Bible says that the very definition of righteous people is that they disadvantage themselves to advantage others, while 'the wicked... are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.'" (208)
"Anyone who cannot obey God's command to observe the Sabbath is a slave, even a self-imposed one... Sabbath is therefore a declaration of our freedom. It means you are not a slave - not to your culture's expectations, your family's hopes, your medical school's demands, not even to your own insecurities." (244)
"What if you're struggling under an unfair boss or a tedious job that doesn't take advantage of all your gifts? It's liberating to accept that God is fully aware of where you are at any moment and that by serving the work you've been given you are serving him." (250)
