Love @ Work Always Hopes

"They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more." (a line from the nihilist 1960s play “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett). Our world desperately needs hope, and love in the workplace must offer it.

I struggle with this in the midst of an extended real estate downturn, as we see blow after blow to the our prospect of recovering our investors’ money (not to mention fees that would pay our payroll). The obvious answer is that I say to our employees and investors that money isn’t everything, and that it will all work out OK in the end – just trust in the Lord. But I’m sorry, that just doesn’t work for me. I don’t mean it isn’t true, just that this isn’t an environment for glib statements. Still, if we are to offer love to the people we work with, we have to be able to offer hope – that surely is one of the greatest gifts love has to offer?

The Bible acknowledges the sense of futility that can come from a dependence on human effort, particularly in Ecclesiastes (a book most students of the Bible have grappled with at one time or another). “When I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun” (Eccl 2:11) says the Preacher (possibly the ultimate over-achiever Solomon!). But in the end, even the Preacher concludes “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Eccl 12:13-14).

How is this a message of hope for our colleagues and business partners? Quite simply that it is a matter of perspective. What we see, in our financial desperation, is the end of the world. But clearly that’s not what God sees. When others around us see their self-worth challenged by failure, love reaches out to them and declares the value God places on them. When others see the loss of material possessions as the end of all that matters, love shows that God (in part through us) has a present and future hope that transcends things and offers relationships – even relationship with God Himself through Jesus. When others fear death (their own or their loved ones), love boldly proclaims the hope of the resurrection – the confidence that God is not limited by mortality and death, but brings renewal – new life, new bodies, a new heaven and earth (1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 21).

However, coming back to the glib response – it is not sufficient for me to tell someone not to worry about loss of job, when I have a retirement fund in reserve, meaning I’ll still have food on the table if I’m out of work, while I know or suspect that they do not! We need to be sensitive to the reality of the present for others, without losing sight of and being driven by God’s greater reality. This isn’t easy, but keeping God’s hope to ourselves is distinctly unloving!