The God of Wooden Plows

When we think of Jesus, we tend to focus on His birth or His last three years on this earth. But we should also remember "that Jesus spent most of His life engaged in manual labor." Back in Galilee in the second century, the Christian apologist Justin Martyr said that during his lifetime it was still common to see farmers using plows made by the carpenter Jesus of Nazareth.

In his book, titled The Call, theologian Os Guinness reminds us that even the humblest work is important if it is done for God. “How intriguing,” Guinness writes, “to think of Jesus’ plow rather than His Cross—to wonder what it was that made His plows and yokes last and stand out.” Clearly, they must have been very well made if they were still in use in the second century.

Today, Christians typically exalt spiritual work above manual work. After all, what’s making a plow compared with preaching to multitudes, feeding the five thousand, or raising someone from the dead? But the very fact that Jesus did make plows—and made them well—suggests that any work can be done to the glory of God. Any work can be a genuine calling. A calling, Guinness writes, is anything we do “as a response to God’s summons and service.” When God calls us to some task—even if it’s something the world sees as lowly—that task is invested with what Guinness calls “the splendor of the ordinary.”

“Drudgery done for ourselves or for other human audiences will always be drudgery,” he writes, but “drudgery done for God is lifted and changed.” Accepting drudgery is one of the ways we practice discipleship—learning to offer it up sacrificially to God. “We look for the big things to do—[but] Jesus took a towel and washed the disciples’ feet,” Guinness writes. “We like to speak and act out of the rare moments of inspiration—[but] He requires our obedience in the routine, the unseen, and the thankless.” We, His followers, must be willing to take on the humble and thankless tasks as well—and not become impatient with changing diapers, doing homework, or taking out the trash.

If you are frustrated in your job or think the work you have to do is beneath you, just remember that for a season the One who turned water into wine and raised the dead to life . . . also made wooden plows."
-- Chuck Colson