Here is an excerpt from chapter 4 of my book, "Who is your Provider??" entitled, "Toil with sweat?" Chapter 4: Toil with sweat? ”I want to work hard and provide for my family” ”I’m sorry I’m working all these hours and don’t have time for you and the kids, but I have all these bills. I have to put food on the table and I’m just under enormous pressure and have a lot on my mind!” “My husband is the main breadwinner, or so I‘ve learned. I look to him for everything I need.” “You’re taking off work AGAIN?! You’re going to lose your job! Who cares if your sick, go in that way, show your boss that you’re responsible, be a man!” You have heard many examples of the above in movies, by your in-laws, friends and family. In our society it is expected both parents to provide for the family, mainly the father. It is expected of them to work hard, even late hours to get by. It’s expected (by many) of the man to have a nice house, a two-car garage and a hefty bank account--the American Dream. This is ideal and anyone who doesn’t have such is not ambitious, considered lazy, not practical or just doesn’t plan ahead. They haven’t set proper goals in life to achieve fortune and prosperity. Any man or woman who has such is immediately thought to be blessed of God, “they must be obedient because God is obviously blessing them!” But on the flipside anyone who doesn’t have such things is thought quite the opposite, “they have some learning to do! God must be VERY displeased with them. It‘s obvious they failed in their choices because they aren‘t prospering like me!” How sad for parents who try so very hard to provide for their families and are lucky to even have enough on their tables to eat. No matter how hard they may try, it does no good and when God tries to reach out to them through people, they’d refuse any blessings. Why? In their mind it’s possible failed choices that led them into that predicament in the first place. They feel they must pay for the consequences of their choices, or they have to do everything themselves without help and want to show people they are “responsible”. Or perhaps it’s shame and pride that keeps them from receiving. People think, for example, if a girl has two children out of wedlock, she’s told she has to pay for her consequences. So, if she meets a guy and they date, people would look down on her because they think she should no longer have any fun but to be 100% devoted to her children because people think she “messed up” and should continue to pay for her decisions. So not only has she learned what she did was wrong, but she has to face the coldness from people? That she has to suffer to care for them financially without help from anyone? Where’s mercy, where’s grace? We don’t dare to ask God for what we need because we heard people say that He wants us to work for everything we need. We can’t receive help from Him or a “hand-out” from people because that would be feeding into our “laziness” and that we have to pay for our wrong decisions. So when we who are struggling hear that, we think, “why bother to get God’s help, because He wants us to do it all and without help from anyone”, but if we think that, why did God inspire Paul to write about that in his letters to the Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13:4-5).” So if God doesn’t want us to recount peoples wrongs but wants us to be kind, where have we learned that we can’t receive God’s help because of the mistakes we‘ve made? The world. Remember Job’s friends, they thought Job was suffering the way he was because he sinned and that he was receiving his due penalty for it. At the conclusion, God said to Job’s friends, “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has (Job 42:7-9).“ In Psalm 130:3-4, If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. In Psalm 145:14 it says, “The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.“ How many instances have you heard of people who committed suicide because they couldn‘t provide for their families? Expectations are placed on the heads of a family by their families, friends, and many in the church. It is the role that is expected that if a husband or wife doesn’t fit in the shoes of their expectations they are regarded as failures. Families who work so hard end up finding out that they don’t make enough so that they have no choice but to ask the government for assistance. Or it may be where both parents work and can’t even receive help from the government because they make too much money and still there is barely enough to put food on the table. Of course you get many who step in with criticism, “guess they didn’t plan ahead! They have children and can’t even support them so now they‘re leaching off the government!” How sad for a spouse to take their lives because they feel they failed them. Why did they take their lives? They failed (in the world’s eyes)? How did they fail? Most of their responses would’ve been, “I couldn’t put food on the table, get my wife and children nice things because I couldn’t find work or didn’t make enough.” In the movie, Slingblade, the little boy, Frankie, was sharing with his older friend Karl about his daddy killing himself and leaving a note explaining why: Frankie: Karl, you know when I told you Daddy got hit by a train? Karl: Yes, I recollect that. Frankie: It ain’t the truth. He shot himself with a shotgun on purpose. Karl: How come he would do that, reckon? Frankie: ‘Cause he didn’t have enough money to take care of us the way he wanted to. That’s what the letter said. He got laid off of work and started working odd jobs. I thought he took care of us just fine. Money has been ingrained in society that mostly everyone desires it, so if everyone desires it, it has to be obtained by any means. Failing in this world isn’t tolerated. The world puts so much pressure on people to be successful (rich), so when those expectations are put on people who can’t live up to them, then they failed and there are a lot of people who can’t handle failing. It reminds me of the movie, It’s a wonderful life. I’m sure everyone who is reading this book has seen the movie. There was an incident in the movie where George Bailey’s Uncle Billy was going to deposit $8000 in the bank. While he was at the bank, he met up with Mr. Potter, a money-hungry fiend who was after George’s business, the Bailey Building & Loan. Once Uncle Billy saw Mr. Potter, he took the paper Mr. Potter had and noticed the article of his nephew Harry (George’s brother) winning the congressional medal of honor on the front page. After rubbing the success of his nephews in Mr. Potters face, he accidentally left the $8000 rolled up in Mr. Potter’s paper. Once Mr. Potter saw the money, he finally had his chance of putting the Bailey Building & Loan out of business and ruining the Bailey family. George Bailey thought he was ruined and because of what he feared would happen to his family, he was going to take his life over the matter of money saying, “I’m worth more dead than alive”. After rejection set in when his wife Mary told him to leave on account of scaring the children because of his frustration and anger over what happened, he said to the angel Clarence he wished he’d never been born. Clarence was just about to show him just how wrong he was. Was it about money when Clarence showed George his younger brother Harry‘s tombstone? No, it was because George wasn’t there to save his brother from falling through the ice. Or how about when George saw Mary leaving the library as a celibate librarian? No, Clarence showed George that because they never met, she never married. Or how about his own mother not recognizing him? No, in each instance it was about true friendship and the love he gave to everyone he knew, it’s what was truly important, his heart. At the close of the movie, Clarence left his book of Tom Sawyer with George and the following words, ”No man is a failure who has friends!” Was being “responsible” with money mentioned in Clarence’s final words to George? Did Clarence say, “oh and hey George, try and not lose this money that you’re receiving from your friends because it is your life!“ No way! Clarence showed George what truly mattered; just how kind and how wonderful his life truly was. Money in the world means success, the more money you have, the more successful you are and if you don’t have it, then you’re not successful. You’re not considered successful anymore (by the world) if you raised your children up godly, loved your wife or husband. Your success is defined by how much money you bring in, the former comes only when money is in place. Ask anyone, “what does it mean to be successful to you?” most likely their response would be “having a lot of money” and not what is really important. What’s really important? Keep reading. A real man… People tend to place a lot of importance of working hard in their jobs, and when I mean working hard, I mean “killing yourself” over your work. If you stay home and rest your bodies when you’re sick, it’s frowned upon not only by your employers, but your family, friends and many in church. “If you’re sick, suck it up and be a man! Go to work with the flu or a cold. If you require rest, you’re weak and lazy! A real man will go to work when he’s sick just to show the world and his family that he’s responsible!” Heaven forbid that you would ever contemplate staying home until you’re well, No way! “So, you took the day off because you’re sick? Are you going to work tomorrow? No?! Don’t you care about your job? What about the bills?! You have to work!” In society today, a real man can’t get sick. It’s expected of him to go into work deathly ill. Well, not deathly ill, in that case go to the doctors and get some medication, BUT COME BACK TO WORK TOMORROW! There is much responsibility placed on men in today’s world. How terrible for the man who doesn’t live up to those expectations! A man isn’t allowed to rest, he must be working constantly and if he wants to go on a vacation, he should take one once every 4 years but of course that‘s a conservative estimate. I met this girl at a company I volunteered at. When I started talking with her she was mentioning how she didn’t want to work, she wanted to be a housewife. Why did she want to be a housewife? Her mindset was that her husband was to take on the brunt of the responsibilities so she can stay home because in the world it‘s “normal“ for the husband to take all the burden on himself (because to people, it has “always“ been that way). So, if he loses his job or they don‘t have enough to pay the bills, then he’d probably be criticized by the wife and those of the world or he‘d be forced to work overtime constantly. How many women today take advantage of that because the world sets the man as the main “breadwinner”? This girl was one of those who would take advantage of that. That’s a lot of responsibility on a man today and the world doesn’t give man a choice, so if he ever loses his job and couldn’t find one, his self-worth would be in question. There are many men today who ask themselves, “how will I ever get married and have children, I’m not financially secure or anything and the time that I get there, I’ll be past the age to have kids!” Responsibility pours off into every area of a man’s life, especially in jobs. If a man has to take off because of family emergencies, it is usually frowned upon because a “good worker” should take off once in a great while. A brother once told me while I was sitting with him at the hospital because his wife was going to get a hysterectomy that his job wasn’t too happy with him taking off to be with her. This boy hardly took off (not that that matters when it comes to health) and his job got bent out of shape when he told them that! I said to him, “who cares! No job takes precedence over the health of your family!” Now it’s the world’s mindset that “you shouldn’t take off, you have to be responsible and work so that you can put food on the table and pay your bills. You can always see your wife after your work is done”. Bull! His wife was frightened and she needed him there! So many expectations are placed on people to be “responsible” that you can’t take off when you’re sick, “you pansy, go to work when you’re sick, take the pain, suck it up and be a man!” In scripture it said that Jesus was weary from His journey (John 4:6) and went to sit down at the well and rested until he met a woman from a Samaritan village. What was wrong with Jesus? If He really was of God, He wouldn’t have been tired (Luke 8:23-24), because being tired shows weakness and a man of God can’t be weak (pun intended)! A man today has to work long hours and be tough. Even for a man to show emotion of any kind is not tolerated and even ridiculed, if a man cries, he’s considered a “wimp”, a “pansy” or a “baby”. A real man is expected to keep from showing his emotions so that he can be strong for his family, but how open is he with his family then? The world has taught men that talking about their feelings wasn’t manly. If they do, they’re ridiculed and that ridicule brings about ungodly shame because a “real man“ has to take pain and not let it effect him. If it’s ridiculed on TV shows for a man to talk about his feelings because it‘s not manly, how can disagreements ever work out unless you know what your partner is thinking? On the one side, you get the world ridiculing men who are expressive so when they become silent and “manly” as the world tells them. Then the other side comes out, “you need to talk about your feelings and communicate!“ Which is it? My father used to say nothing when my mom asked him about how he felt or what he was thinking, so she never knew, so if you don’t know what your partner is thinking, then how can any problem ever be worked out? So, a real man doesn’t cry, right? A real man takes pain? Would you agree that Jesus was a real man? “Oh yeah man! That guy took nails in his hands and feet and stabbed in the side, that man was strong!“ Ok, how do you feel about a man crying? “I think any guy who cries is a pansy! Tell him to grow up!” Ok, if you think Jesus is a man‘s man, look at these scriptures of how he took pain and he wept (John 11:35, Isaiah 53, Matt. 26:67-68, 27:27-31, 32-35). It’s even stereotyped that a real man loves only sports and hates chick flicks, well, some do anyways. Where did this thinking come from? The world. Another “real-man” example I’ve seen is at the gym. You get these dudes that lift huge weights and grunt. So the real macho guys see other guys who are working out and push them to lift more than what they really can and hurt themselves “You hurt yourself?! Suck it up dude, be a man!“ To follow the crowds that think like this, is just setting yourself up to fail. When I was working out one day, a guy saw me lift the weights and he said, “c’mon man, you can lift more than that!” So, if a guy heard that, he’d think, “I must be a wimp, because I’m not lifting enough.” I don’t lift weights I can’t pick up, I work into them and it takes time so your body can adjust. A real man isn’t defined by something he can or can’t do, a man is a man because God created him a man. In society today, as we had mentioned above, it’s expected of the man to provide for his family and if he can’t, then he’s just not a good father or husband because he can’t find work. Working, toiling and trusting… In Genesis 3:17-20, God said to Adam that he and his descendants would have to work very hard for their food on account of this curse on creation because of sin. So we (had) become sinners because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. What was their disobedience? They didn’t believe God because they listened to the serpents lies which began with, “Did God really say..?” The serpent convinced them that maybe there’s more God was not revealing and not to believe Him. So once they disobeyed God, independence from God came into play and innocence was taken away in exchange for sin. Through Adam all died BUT in Christ all lived. Christ has restored the relationship with God that Adam and Eve had in Eden. So my question is this, do we toil any longer in our jobs like Adam had and every man after him? God put man in the garden to work it (Genesis 2:15) but until sin came, man didn’t have to toil (Genesis 3:17, 19). So since Jesus was the second Adam, the first born of a new creation and dealt with the sin problem, should we toil any longer as man has in the past? What’s the reason for toiling, to get by? Didn’t Jesus say that if we had any needs, God knows them but He wants us to seek God’s kingdom? Why seek His kingdom, why not work for what we need? Why ask God? I mean, after all we did it all our own for centuries! In Man we Trust? As you can see, that is what the world has done for ages starting with Adam, to do everything on their own and WITHOUT GOD. There is no rest for those of the world because they still operate in the thinking of Adam and toil in their work (independently). As it says in Isaiah 57:20-21, “(But) the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.” They refuse to know and acknowledge God so they will never enter His rest and sadly the church still operates in this and toils in their jobs even when God says to rest. The people that God brought out of Egypt in the time of Moses wandered in the desert for forty years because they refused to follow God’s ways, so they never rested in their own land, their children did because they eagerly followed the Lord. Our society has tried to show its independence from God when times are good. If you had already noticed that we have “In God we trust” on our money. Perhaps when our country was first founded, we did trust Him, but through the centuries our trust in God has declined to the point to where we trust only in ourselves. We try to take God out of schools and then remove the 10 commandments in various places, but when trying times come like 9/11 people ask, “where were you God? Why did you allow this to happen?” I’m glad God isn’t a human like us to which He would respond, “Excuse me? You kicked me out of your schools. You’ve had your children to stop praying to me. You’ve taken the commandments I’ve given and removed them and now you cry out to me when disaster strikes? Are you talking to me?!” I would rather the government take out “In God we trust” off the money. Having it on the money is a mockery. If anything, America has learned to trust in themselves and I won’t doubt that the time is coming when it will be replaced to, “In Man we trust”. Jesus asks us to seek God for our needs, but we can’t seek God’s kingdom if: 1. We don’t really know God or anything about how His Kingdom works, 2. Believe in what He says because we have so much of the world’s thinking in us, 3. Trust Him
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 22:58:00 +0000