What is a good wage? An acceptable harvest for our hunting and gathering depends on many things: like how much satisfaction we get from the work, if we feel compensation is honoring and not demeaning, for example. But those things seem to bring about one other criteria that is of major importance: our joy. To be able to provide a comfortable living for our loved ones feels pretty good. To be compensated in a way that respects our skill and our craft is most gratifying.
So what of a different kind of work? Is there another kind? Is there a work that can be done without human hands that also produces a harvest without hands? Perhaps, a harvest that is not consumed?
There is such a work. It is a work that increases in the joy it yields; even to a climax of ecstasy. It is a work that extends our life. By tending to this work, life is prolonged. To be sure, a long life is no indicator of the joy within it. It takes more than that. Jacob expressed that he had a long life of 130 years, but very few days of which were joyous for him (Gen 47:8-9). How so? Was there fruit that led to difficulties in life for Jacob? The Scriptures do say he was a trickster. Still, something was missing from the way he was doing life. It didn’t produce the joy it should have. Also, those who lived before the Noahic flood experienced the longest of lives. But their hearts grew ever harder (Gen 6:5) and unloving. Abraham in contrast is said to have died at a ripe old age: 175 years (Gen 25:7-8).
What is it that makes a life ripe? How does one achieve a life of satisfaction? If the fruit of the hands such as money, food, clothing, and shelter fade over time, there has to be something else that yields a better harvest; so that a person gets to the end of his or her life and declares that it has been a ripe one!
If we fear the Lord by keeping his commands, it is said that our life will be prolonged (Deut 6:2). The Hebrew word, arak, means “to make long.” Long life is seen to be a blessing. It is like an extension given for a life well-lived. Proverbs confirms this theme (Prov 9:10-11) by saing that our days will be multiplied for fearing the Lord. Arak is something given for keeping the commands of God. Yet, we realize in these examples that there is more. It is not the length of life that determines blessing. It is the contents of the life. “Life’s donation is more important than life’s duration, not how long one lives, but how well one lives” (TWOT). So then the adding and prolonging of days is a benefit when life is being well-lived. It would appear to be almost like a curse for a life not being lived well. A prolonged life of complication would be no blessing.
This fear and reverence of God does not come by following Law. We know we fail with keeping laws; especially, the demand of the high holiness of God’s laws. It comes quite another way. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut 6:5). This requires a complete package of a life, doesn’t it? This is what it is to be “all in.” Heart, soul, might…that’s all we got! That’s a wrap. And by approaching life as a relationship of lovers between creator and the created, the commands of the Lord become written on the heart (Deu 6:6). They become a joy to do. It is this love that seems to be the key that produces the conditions of which God can extend blessing. And not just a blessing of lenth, but a blessing of rich contents to that length.
Saint Augustine made a fantastic statement about how the only good fruit is fruit that grows from the root of love:
“He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow, – not that the law is itself evil, but because the commandment has its good in the demonstration of the letter, not in the assistance of the spirit; and if this commandment is kept from the fear of punishment and not from the love of righteousness, it is servilely kept, not freely, and therefore it is not kept at all (On the Spirit and the Letter, XXVI. 45.).
Jesus affirmed that the Law and the Prophets were intended to get God’s people to love Him above all (Matt 22:37-40). It is out of this joy of loving God that His word becomes written on our heart. The distance between this new life that is given wholeheartedly to God and the old life of plaguesd by sin will grow until its final consummation in the glorious resurrection of His people. There becomes less of the life that is void of joy and satisfaction and purpose, and there becomes a life driven and inspired by love.
The first of these wholehearted expressions of our love toward God is our faith in His son who came for this very purpose: to justify those who put their faith in Him. God is love (1Joh 4:8). Jesus Christ is His son (Matt 16:16). The Holy Spirit is sent to live within us and guide us in His stead (John 14:16-17). So that love of God has been poured into you! The love of God dwells within. There is a soft voice that speaks. Listen. Love it. And extend joy in your life.
I read a good blog entry today. Chris Brady over at 
