August is here. Time to unwind from the stresses of work and spend time with the family. Time to recharge our batteries and remember that there’s more to life than work or school.
Work often gives us a purpose in life – “What do you do?” is always asking us about our work. Work is where we take our self-worth, where we find our identity. Losing your job creates a crisis of self-confidence, of identity, as well as the financial pressures it may bring. Even a well-planned retirement can result in real problems – we aren’t who we were – we have to reinvent ourselves.
We also value the esteem others hold for us – so we spend our lives trying to impress other people, instead of trying to do the right thing. It may be our family, or our peers – school friends or work colleagues – or any passing stranger! Whether we want smarter clothes or a better car, the chances are we are thinking of how they will impress other people.
Even our ambitions are seated in the desire to impress. I pursued an academic career to please my parents – I wanted to feel my own value in their approval. Even now I can feel the sense of failure that I didn’t get a better degree, study for a doctorate, become an academic, because these are things I know my parents value.
But this is not how it should be!
When these things are stripped away – when we retire, or lose our employment, when we lose a position of influence, then we are thrown back upon ourselves. Who am I? What am I worth?
For the Christian, these questions should be answered within the context of our faith – God made me the way that I am, he looks upon me just as I look upon my children, and he loves me. Only when I think about how much I love my children do I realise how God cares about me.
This gives me a value that no job can, that no smart suit or posh car can – I matter to God, and I don’t have to work at it. And when I fail, as inevitably I do, He urges me to get up and start again, with forgiveness and no condemnation.
And so, it is time to take a break, to remember that work is not everything.
Have a great holiday!
Jon Rotheray