The Proverbs :: A Guidebook for MenSample

Sixteen days into a devotional for men, we’re just now focusing on work. Perhaps there is something to that. Long before you can ever truly be effective in your job, you need to set your heart into a posture that honors God, ask Him to repair the broken relationships in your life, change the way you speak, and hone your attention on His glory instead of your own.

We were all designed to work. From Adam’s hands to yours, all of us were intended to cultivate, curate, and create in some form or fashion. Your work is important to God. He cares about what you are doing, how you do it, and most importantly, why you are doing it.

Proverbs 16 begins with a promise that should you do your work for the glory of God, your plans will be “established.”

This word – in Hebrew, ‘galal’ – describes how the moon was set in place by God or how a tree is firmly rooted into the ground beneath it. How reaffirming is that imagery?! If you live your life with the mission statement: “My work is for God, not for man,” your welfare and functioning will be as consistent as the moon’s reliability and as steady as a firmly rooted tree.

As with all of Scripture, this is not a guarantee that your life will be without setbacks or difficulty, but it is a promise that God will be with you when the struggles come.

Proverbs 16 is a beautiful reminder that our work and plans are only sacred when we commit them to the Lord. Solomon tells us that the Lord is the only one who can work everything out to its proper end. He encourages us that the Lord can take pleasure in how we go about our lives and warns us against allowing our pride to fool us into taking matters into our own hands.

It’s that feeling of trying to work your way into a conversation that wasn’t for you or sacrificing a bit of integrity so that you can position yourself where God has not. It’s taking the easy way out of a difficult conversation, going along with gossip or slander, cheating, stealing, or lying.

“Better is a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.”

Do your best not to confuse your calling with your current assignment. You were made to honor and glorify God; that is the calling on your life. You do this daily through your thoughts, actions, how you treat others, and even how you work. Whether it is your dream job or a temp job, your current assignment is an opportunity to live out that calling. Whatever you have been given today, do it to the best of your abilities, and let God work out what comes next.

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God, You know better than I do just what I desire. I may think it is one thing, but Your knowledge of me is so deep that You can provide what I am truly after. Help my ambitions correspond with Yours so I might be genuinely content. I commit my work to You today so we might walk in step. I work for You, not for man. Amen.