Labor and Wait

I read a short little book by John Piper the other day entitled When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God and Joy. Certainly the most succinct and thorough book I’ve encountered on the topic of melancholy, or depression, or spiritual darkness, whatever name we might give it. One of the ideas that struck me was the call to work – to labor at the things we have in front of us – wether it be an occupation, housework, childrearing, service or ministry. There is healing in work – in keeping our hands busy at something. Not only a healing, but a safekeeping as well – what is that saying? Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. So we live in this tension between work (not to be confused with busyness) and waiting; between labor and resting. Let our hands be busy on the tasks before us, let our hearts be still as we wait upon Him. Is that not the challenge though: To be still in our core – in the center of our being – and attentive to the voice of the Spirit at every moment, at every turn, while still attending to our duties? We are plagued, particularly in modern America it seems, with an insane level of busyness which does not constitute the work which Piper exhorts us too, but is rather the result of a high-paced society, or an unholy ambition for recognition, or a lust for the wealth of this world. It would behoove us to search our hearts and allow Him to show us which activities must fall by the wayside, and which things to put our hands to. My heart echoes the call of Longfellow: “Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate, Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.”