Godly Ambition
To complement our sermon series in Ecclesiastes, we will be publishing articles that pick up on some of the themes in the book. One of our members, who is our Deacon for the AV Ministry and a lawyer by training, reflects on how Christians can think about secular work in a fallen world.
“So I guess you’ve made it, huh?”, my friend remarked as I showed him around my office in the Central Business District. Overlooking some very scenic views, it was quite a nice spot; I called it my gilded cage.
I mumbled something about how Christians see the point of life as being a bit more than just work, but I wasn’t sure if even I was convinced.
It was 2022 and I had just started work in one of the bigger law firms in Singapore. At the time I was convinced that training and working here was God’s will for my life. Labouring under the mistaken theology that God’s will was to be discerned by walking through open doors, I happily signed away years of my life to the HR recruiter who replied first.
For most of the next three years, I laboured alone under the weak fluorescent light of the windowless room where I spent my waking hours. Many late nights were spent in the office stressed, eating cup noodles from the pantry after missing the 9pm closing time for the fast food downstairs (Ecc 5:17). When not in office, a well-meaning senior encouraged me to have my work laptop with me at all times, especially on holiday, so that I could quickly make amendments on the go without needing to cancel plans. More sinister was that even when I was not physically working, I was often mentally at work, and my wife learnt to recognise the visceral stress-response that accompanied every buzz of my work phone.
It was punishing, but as friends left one after another, I stayed the course; after all, I liked the cases I was working on, which were complex, challenging, and involved large sums of money. I was also working with some of the best lawyers in the land and I saw how the legal system needed competent lawyers in order for justice to be done, and I wanted to be one of them. I believed that I had found my “Ikigai”, the Japanese term meaning “reason for life”, giving me “the happiness of always being busy”, sitting at the intersection of what I enjoyed, was good at, was rewarded for, and which the world seemed to need.
Moreover, when I listened to Timothy Keller’s “Every Good Endeavour” sermon series and his exposition on the importance of doing work well, my Singaporean ears heard only an endorsement of the Singaporean dream: work hard and strive for excellence, but now as if you are serving God. How convenient that God wants me to do exactly what I wanted, I thought.
It took a more serious look at the theology of work to make me see the error of my ways. A church member recommended “Revolutionary Work” by William Taylor, which speaks of how Christians have a different boss: Jesus; a different goal: to display Christ; and whatever my formal job description, I was first and foremost a full-time Christian. It follows that while work is to be done excellently, it cannot be at the cost of other God-given priorities. The words of my wedding charge also rang in my head “Marriage, according to God’s word is the union of one man and one woman, voluntarily entered into for life, to the exclusion of all others”. If I was allowing work to exclude all other aspects of my life, was I not in some sense married to work?
During my year-end review, I reflected that I was straining under the workload but was encouraged to consider that being given more work showed how my contributions were valued and appreciated, and also that hard work was necessary to build a foundation for my career, which was just beginning. I appreciated the candour, which helped clarify the choice I had to make: if I continued down this path I could be reasonably confident of consistent career progression and development, but I had to be prepared to continue paying the price in sleep, spiritual health, relationships, and peace of mind (Ecc 4:1-8).
After working over Chinese New Year, followed by a week of 1am nights amidst yet another bout of sickness, it became clear that I had to reconsider the place of work in my life. The work situation was tough, but it was not strictly unbearable, and it made more financial sense to endure for another year. However, if staying on meant that I could not obey the commands to meaningfully gather with fellow church members, to study and meditate on the Word, and also to rest, then it would be wrong to stay. Seen in this light, the choice was clear. My wife and I prayed about it together one night, and I resigned the next day after speaking with my bosses.
As I gradually off-loaded my matters during my notice period, I had the headspace to more clearly see work through a Christian lens. My workplace would qualify as an unreached people group (<5% Christian), and if I am spending almost all my waking hours at work, it could not be correct that I was devoting my best efforts to vanities that do not last while neglecting the eternal souls of those I was working with, not to mention my own. I saw that excellence at work is good, but it is not ultimate; it is right and proper to do good work, but only to the extent that it allows and supports God’s purposes in this world, including my own spiritual growth.
I thank God that through the hardships of the preceding years, God provided the strength to seize opportunities to share the gospel with colleagues and friends; for example, it is true that when a Christian refuses to repay evil for evil when matters blow up and tempers flare, the watching world wants to know why (1 Pet 3:15).
As I wrapped up the various files I was working on and handed over to juniors, young and eager for their turn in the meat grinder, it struck me: surely, this too is vanity, and in a year or so, who would remember the many hours I had poured into work, or the personal sacrifices I had made?
But for the eternal souls I worked alongside, those whom I had encouraged in the faith as we struggled together, those in whose lives I had sown seeds of the gospel, or otherwise shown grace to, such labour in Christ will not be in vain (1 Cor 15:58).