every good endeavor

Where do I even begin with this book? I will admit, I took forever on it... My friend Sam once told me that he had spent so much time reading philosophy books that he forgot how to read novels. I have the opposite problem, wherein I can't remember how to read books that don't have a plot (and therefore take two weeks to read 250 pages).

But regardless of my slowness getting through, I highly recommend Tim Keller's latest... Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work. It covers a lot of material and is useful even to the lowly non-working workers (i.e. students) among us.

As usual, the most convicting parts of the book had to do with work and its relationship to rest. Keller says,

'If we can experience gospel-rest in our hearts, if we can be free from the need to earn our salvation through our work, we will have a deep reservoir of refreshment that continually rejuvenates us, restores our perspective, and renews our passion.'

I'm sure I know what you all are thinking. 'Katie, you don't have a job. Why in the world do you need rest? Your whole life is rest!'

False.

I find myself even more immediately confronted with my lack-of-rest now than I did when I was a full-time student with a schedule that looked, on a nice week, like this:

Because now that I am objectively not working, I ought not to feel tired. I ought not to feel anxious. I ought not to feel overworked.

In reality, I spent the first month of this summer rather stressed out and totally exhausted. I wasn't working then any more than I am now, but I was a wreck. I had this 'need to earn my salvation through my work,' a sense that my value comes from my work, and I wasn't working.

bad work = little value

no work = no value

That's a problem. I think they call that 'legalism.' Now I'm not saying I subscribe to some weird works-based soteriology... I've spent enough time with The Five Solas to know intellectually that I cannot work my way into Heaven, etc etc.

...But apparently I haven't spent enough time with God to know personally that I have value not based on how much product I turn out, how many people I impact, how much money I make, how efficiently I use my time, how pristinely clean I keep the kitchen, or any other quantifiable measurement of usefulness.

That is the 'rest under the rest' that Keller talks about in the book, and also in actually my favorite sermon ever.

Without it? I will spend this whole summer doing nothing, and being run down by it. I will be sitting on the edge of my chair, springloaded, tapping my feet, waiting and waiting and waiting for something earth-shattering to present itself to me (or at least a job at the Village Cleaners, really)... and that's not rest.

Real rest is better for me, and better for the world, than my constant wheel-spinning could ever be, even if I did have a job. Since I don't, it's that much clearer. I need to learn how to rest, and quit freaking out about working so much that I read 250-page theology books on work when I'm unemployed.

(But seriously, even if you're unemployed like me, I highly recommend this book! And if you're not, I recommend it even more.)