The “New” Work Lets the Father Work: One Man’s Perspective

The post-pandemic era has led many of us who walk with the Messiah to reevaluate just what it means to find fulfillment in our daily routines. Work priorities have shifted to where telecommuting is the norm in office situations, leaving many of us confined to a vocation severed from significant human contact. For white-collar men, changing things around leaves them with newfound time with the family, and since the average couple spends an average of around twenty minutes of quality time together when everything else is done, this new situation can be a shock to their entire paradigm.

As Times Change, So Must Men

The New Testament concept of working with one’s hands is paramount to the teachings of Saint Paul and the rest of the apostles.

But what does that look like now?

It might be said that this post-pandemic era is a rare opportunity to reflect and reevaluate what it means to work as a man. The Father is a kind Master, wishing for His servants to find their gifts and fulfill His plan for their lives. While this might mean different things for different people, one common value among the range of men is supporting the family, yet spending quality time with them in tandem.

Now that the world has changed, so, too, can work change men.

Instead of leaving the house to earn a living, it may be time to succeed in a family venture with spousal input and the childrens’ support. God gave humankind a gift to pause and rethink during COVID-19, and it has led many to understand the Father's wishes for families to build their homes together.

When a man finds his work—his genuine work, not the employment from answering the Indeed ad, but that which he can build upon with God’s blessing—true fulfillment will increase in his life.

Men are vulnerable to feeling purposeless without meaningful work.

Focusing on a new vocational venture, one that involves the entire family in the best-case scenario, is the biblical path forward.

Proverbs 31:18 states, “She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night” while referencing a virtuous woman who has an entrepreneurial spirit. Supplying a new vocational outlet, men can take up the mantle of the patriarchs and the heroes of our faith and extend this refreshing way of work to the woman they love, and the happy couple who work together can get their kids involved as well. A win-win situation of the highest caliber.

Building God’s Kingdom During the Vocational Swing

It’s time to let go of the last sixty years’ worth of corporate machinations and start anew, building the kingdom of God through a higher vocation. We’re now almost three years out of the sabbatical doings of the Father, and the world is changing fast. God has instructed all men everywhere that sometimes reflection and change go hand in hand.

It’s time for men to build the Father’s kingdom through new vocational methods, morphing our approach to productivity in a post-pandemic world. With much refined labor comes much fruit, bringing a bountiful harvest into the “new” work.

Following the Gift and the Giver

Fresh takes on how to work in this era need to involve the concept of following the gifts which God the Father has given to the individual. A gift of speaking leads to open doors of encouragement and wisdom.

The best speakers are those who can tell stories, those who have lived many years and had many experiences.

Has the Father given you the ability to write? Sing? Cleaning a floor like nobody’s business?

Whatever it may be, there is a reason that God has allowed you to develop the gift. Sometimes, the gift comes after much struggle and sharpening. Other times, the gift jumps out at you, as if it has been there all along. Whichever may be true, the development and refinement of ability is an important duty of those who follow the God of Israel, Yahweh.

Some people may struggle to find this gift, but in the post-pandemic world, everything is changing, meaning it is high time to reflect on those changes. Reinvention is necessary for all workers, remote or in-person. Creativity can flourish in such a transformative epoch in the workforce. Maybe the Father has gifted someone with the ability to lead others by coaching them, relating to the post-pandemic shift. A reinvention teacher of sorts. It’s one idea that can be capitalized.

The End of All Things Is at Hand

A great admonition from the Scriptures is the concept that the end of the age is at hand, but from the viewpoint of the Father. At hand, in a biblical sense, does not equal immediacy.

But now, let us take the concept of the end of all things and apply it to the workplace.

The end of the former ways is now upon us.

Telecommuting, avoiding personal interaction in favor of remote capabilities, and fizzling out of office politics are the new age. Just like Jesus will one day return to end this corrupt age under the sway of the Enemy, we need to end the working age of yesteryears. It is time for the Body of Christ to adapt because if we don’t keep up with the secular world, it will only leave us all behind.

Repentance means turning away from sin and turning back to the Father’s ways. It is time to admit that the body of Christ has strayed from God’s original plan for working in this wicked age.

This may be a hard saying that some may not bear, but we have sinned in the way we have made money for the past seventy or eighty years.

When Paul mentions not to be unequally yoked to another, how many of us have considered that “yoke” is a labor term?

Let us cast the bonds of the servitude of the days gone by away from us and reevaluate what it means to be a Christian worker now that God has given us a sabbatical season of refreshment and things are heading back to normal. As normal as things can be in these trying times.

Renewal Is the Goal

As the end of the working age draws to a close, introspection and prayer are far more important than staying in the way things used to be. There is nothing wrong with conservatism and holding fast to the Scriptures as believers have done throughout the ages. But the only way to keep to the concrete ways of the Bible is to embrace that which the Writer of the Bible intended. Let us now shed the illusion of the workplace culture that entangles us and turn back to the ways of the Highest One.

Renewal in the labor arena can only lead to renewal with God.