Who, me?#7. “I pull my weight!”

Henry Ford’s decision to double his car factory workers’ wages to $5 per day (a lot of money in 1914), changed the workplace forever. However, the increase didn’t come without strings attached. Ford believed that good workers must be good citizens. So, he employed inspectors to visit the homes of his workers to ensure that they lived clean and sober lives. Those failing the first inspection were given a chance to clean up their lives. But if signs of drunkenness or squaller persisted, the worker was fired.

Although such intrusions are rightly frowned upon today, I have heard more than one employer suggest that improvements in the home would bring improvements in the workplace. Of course, there is an army of employees who would equally suggest improvements in the workplace would bring improvements in the home.

We are the same person wherever we are!

The man who boasts in his ability to keep his home-life and work-life separate, is deceiving himself. Try as he might to abandon his domestic troubles at his doorstep, they cling to him anyway, and cross his threshold with him when his day is done.

The Christian accepts that God has packaged him as one “body, soul, and spirit.” In the sight of God and man he is the same person at all times and in all circumstances—be he at home, work, church or on the street.

This solves a lot of problems. First and foremost, we cease defining ourselves by the standards of our fellowmen.

Instead, we define ourselves as servants of Christ in particular places, among particular people, and doing particular things “for God’s exclusive reasons!”

By faith we are assured that God is using us – in our present failures and successes – for the glory of His Kingdom.

Therein is contentment. Thus, we pull our weight!

John Staiger