Do Work Son - Part I

My father worked hard. Really hard.

Up before the sun. Steel erecting. Glazing. Concrete. Hard work. Honest work. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t working.

We didn’t have much in the way of possessions. I grew up in a single-wide that always seemed to have plumbing issues. Used cars. Used trucks. Nothing designer or name brand. Later in life, Dad would purchase a modular home for my mom, the first thing they ever really owned.

But my brother and I never went without.

We always had lunch money. My mom worked third shift at Waffle House and kept her tips in a Christmas cookie tin. Every morning, my brother and I would fish out a few dollars for lunch.

We got new clothes and shoes for school. The Christmas tree was never bare. Birthdays consisted of one or two gifts and a Big Boy at Frisch’s.

In the fifth grade, I decided I wanted to play the saxophone. So my parents did a 'rent-to-own.' It is still one of my few regrets in life. By eleventh grade, I was done playing, never realizing they were still paying it off…

I was ungrateful and entitled, even for a poor kid.

I graduated at the top of my class and couldn’t wait to get out of King’s Forest, where there were neither kings nor a forest… just a few trailers, old cars, and what looked to me like broken-down dreams.

I went to a prestigious college on a full ride. I was probably part of some trailer-to-tower program I didn’t even know existed. Either way, I took full advantage of it.

I graduated, the first in my family.

Then graduate school.

Seminary. Twice. And a doctorate.

Somewhere along the way, I got married and started a family. For much of those early years, I worked two jobs. Sometimes three. I always strove to give my family some of the things I didn’t have growing up: health insurance, private school, a head start.

Early on, I discovered something… Very few people could, or would, outwork me. I’m fast. I have a photographic memory. I read—a lot. I tend to see connections others miss, and my mind is usually five steps down the road.

I have put those gifts to work. In relationships. In sales. In ministry. And now, in equipping churches and going after the hearts of men.

To this day, I’ll still outwork most people.

For a long time, I thought that was my thing. The older I get, the more I realize it wasn’t. It was my father’s. He gave it to me.

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My dad didn’t give me an inheritance in the traditional sense. There wasn’t land, a trust fund, a family business, or a portfolio waiting on me. He gave me something else. He taught me how to work.

Before I ever hung a diploma, closed a deal, or opened a theology book, my father taught me something the Bible calls diligence…

"The hand of the diligent makes rich" [Proverbs 10:4]

"In all toil there is profit" [Proverbs 14:23]

Paul tells believers, "Do not be slothful in zeal." He tells the Thessalonians to "work with your hands." And to the Colossians he says that whatever our assignment, we should "work heartily, as for the Lord."

The Bible has no category for a godly man who has made peace with laziness.

And to be sure, work doesn’t save you. Your productivity does not justify you. Jesus does.

Your alarm clock isn’t the gospel. Your paycheck isn’t your righteousness. Your résumé will not impress God. But the grace that saves a man also changes the way that man approaches his work. Work is not our savior. Work is part of our stewardship.

Diligence is the determination to take whatever God has placed in your hands and work at it with all your might. My father would never have used the word 'Diligence.' He just called it going to work.

I worry we’re losing some of that. Not only culturally, but particularly among men…

More on this… Chick-Fil-A… and Biscuits tonight

For the King,

— Harp