Fruits of Your Labor

They will build houses and dwell in them;
    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
No longer will they build houses and others live in them,

    or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,

    so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy

    the work of their hands.
- Isaiah 65:21-22
 
The Lord cares – quite literally – about whether his people get to enjoy the fruits of their labor. This, too, is part of God’s new-making work in the world.
 
We painfully toil at work and don’t get credit for our efforts. We feel frustration when we restore order to a chaotic house (or laundry room) and no one notices. Our blood boils when vultures swoop in, steal the rewards for our hard work,  and leave us empty-handed.
 
In the ancient world, raiders and warlords would roll through the villages and pilfer the harvest. People would be displaced and new settlers would be brought in to live in the now-empty homes. Brutal taxation and land-lease schemes would force subsistence farmers to live on the border of starvation.
 
God pays attention to all of this.
 
For those of us who labor – whether it’s at work or at home – God’s attention is good news. He wants us to enjoy the fruit of our labor. We should be compensated fairly, rewarded for our work, and given a chance to enjoy the good we bring into the world through our labor.
 
But we live in a world that resists God’s desire in this area. We all participate in an economy that benefits from people who don’t get to enjoy the full fruits of their labor. The imbalance lives in our own grocery stores and shops and hearts.
 
One of the things Isaiah does in his prophetic text is to heighten our awareness to “things that just ain’t right.” He sometimes does this directly (“This ain’t right!”) and sometimes indirectly (“This is how things are supposed to be”).
 
Let God open your eyes today. Try to identify something that “just ain’t right” today. When you see it, ask the Lord to intervene.

Leave a Comment

Comments for this post have been disabled.