The Eternal Significance of WorkSample

If God is making all things new, why does the work we do today matter for eternity? Here’s what N.T. Wright had to say when I asked him that question on my podcast, The Call to Mastery:

God intends to put the whole world right. In the present time, He puts us right. That is justification, so that we can be part of His putting right project for the world… We're not building the Kingdom by our own efforts, but we're building for the Kingdom. 

In [my book], Surprised by Hope, I use an image of people who are working on a great medieval cathedral and the stonemasons in the yard who are told, you've got to carve this bit of stone like this and this. The guy probably is fairly illiterate. He's just doing what he's told. He's got his chisel and his hammer and the stone and that's what he's got to do. If somebody said, “What are you doing?” He probably wouldn't say, “I’m building the cathedral.” He would say, “I’m building, working, or carving for the cathedral.” The cathedral is the larger project that the architect and the master mason are responsible for and he's working for it. Then when the master mason comes around and collects up all those carved stones, they get up on the old rickety wooden scaffolding. Then the stonemason looks up at the west front of the cathedral and there is his little bit of carved stone, carved the way he was told to carve it. Meaning far more than he could have ever imagined, because it now joins up with a thousand others and they together make this great design. 

That's what I see in the work that we're called to do as Christians. Very occasionally, we are allowed to see something of the larger design. Most of the time, I think we only see tiny little glimpses. 

When you [work] prayerfully and intentionally and within the love of God, God can take that and use it in huge, enormous ways. The same with every poem, every symphony, every painting, the same with every good, right, upstanding business deal, the same with every good piece of carpentry, or dressmaking, or whatever it is. If it's a good piece of work, it says something about the glory of God and God’s enjoyment of the goodness of the material world and His wanting to make it a beautiful place.