Christians should start thanking God it’s Monday too, but how does remembering you will be gone someday add eternal perspective to your routine workdays?

Someone said in my hearing the other day that Christians tend to thank God it’s Friday, but rarely do they thank him it’s Monday too. I kept the thought.

Because I saw it when I still worked an 8-5pm, Monday meetings I dreaded, I sang “Easy Like Sunday Morning” but cleared my throat as I walked past the reception lady at 8am.

Nothing in my “secular” work seemed related to what God was doing in redeeming the world; “people” wrote harsh emails; lunchtime jokes were crude; teamwork was encouraged as long as everyone “remembered what brought him here.” These questions persisted. Couldn’t career ladders be climbed without stepping on anyone? Did anyone appreciate how many hours I put in?

In between jobs, unemployment baffled me (HR people, can you at least appreciate the time invested in my application and at least get back to me?). “Technical know-who,” I was told, was better than “technical know-how.”

And when I crossed over to self-employment, the predictability of salary was gone. Clients ghosted, payments delayed, and zero HR replies still. Yet where sin’s effects abounded, grace still abounded more too. 

I had to learn quickly. Work is a blessing, but it’s tainted by sin. That’s why it’s sometimes easier to thank God for Friday than Monday, but because Christians know a different story, Jesus’s resurrection, how we work must acknowledge our weakness and his strength, our human frailty and God’s eternality.

We’d love to see you at the Kampala Faith and Work Conference, deal?

For the last 3 years since Kampala Faith and Work began as a single cohort meeting in Nakasero, we have handled themes around the discernment and origins needed in the calling of work. We have talked about how biblical justice plays out in our Kampala and the traps of idolatry in our work, among other themes.

But never have we explored the beginnings of everything, the fact that “to dust we return” (Gen 3:19), yet we are called to “work the ground” (Genesis 3:17); we haven’t assessed human frailty in light of our fields. How do you glorify God in your space when you could be gone tomorrow, if man knows not his time and yet he’s been called to toil? What now?

In other words, if God is eternal and you are not, how should your temporary work glorify him right now? 

“Number our days aright.” Kampala Faith and Work Conference: Friday, May 1st, Lugogo Baptist Church. Sign-ups ongoing.

Breakout sessions include Redeeming Time as a Homemaker, Stewardship for Creatives, Business as Mission, The Local Church and the Marketplace Christian, Renewing Ugandan Education, Redeeming Time during Unemployment, Numbering My Days as a Legal Professional, and Gospel Impact for NGOs. Schedule yours