The World's Best Job!

There was much interest in the office yesterday at a new survey ranking 200 jobs, from best to worst. The big question: which TGBC employee had the best (and worst) job?

IT guru Jonny Barker won the contest; software engineer came in at third on the US-produced list, which ranks jobs based on five criteria: physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook.

The editorial team lost, collectively; publication editor is down at 168, four below carpet installer and eight below refuse collector. It could be worse, though: newspaper reporter (which I used to be) is rock bottom, at 200. You can see the whole list here.

So, if you’re reading this as you sit at a desk in an actuarial office, congratulations—you win! You can work with a smile on your face and a spring in your step. If you’re a lumberjack, down in 199th position, sorry—you lose. You’ll have to drag yourself through life, with an unfulfilling career stretching before you.

Except that the biblical worldview turns it all on its head.

The Bible tells us that the most well-paid, stress-free, job-satisfaction-laden job will never fully satisfy us. In an imperfect world, spoiled by sin, work will frustrate as well as fulfil. And a career cannot bear the weight of being worshipped as the ultimate joy-bringer in life. So looking to a job to provide fulfillment leads only to disappointment (even if you’re an actuary).

The Bible tells us: your dream job will never satisfy you.

And then it tells us: you can be satisfied no matter what your job.

Why? Because when we know that we have “every spiritual blessing”—significance, security, satisfaction, for ever—in Christ (Ephesians 1 v 3), and not in our career, our view of our job changes.

First, we don’t work for ourselves anymore, nor for our boss. We work for our Lord. Even those who work as slaves can know that they are, ultimately, “working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3 v 23). Whatever your job involves today, you can do it for Jesus, in service of Him, knowing you are able to please Him. No one else may notice the guy who reads the meters (number 194 in the survey) or who washes the dishes (187), but God does; and He values it; and you can do it well, as service to Him, in a way which pleases Him. We can read meters and wash dishes for the Creator. Which is far better, and far more significant, than doing financial planning (number 5) or dental hygiene (6) focused entirely on ourselves.

Second, we have a better job than any on that list. God has “committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors” (2 Corinthians 5 v 19-20). Your job is not your most important job. Whatever you do in an office, a factory, at home, and so on, if you’re a Christian, you’re an ambassador, appointed by the heavenly court to represent the heavenly King and proclaim the message of the heavenly King. What you do in that job will still matter in a thousand, a million, a billion years.

So having that job—whether you’re God’s ambassador at the lumberjack yard, the restaurant sink, the nappy-changing table or the actuary firm—catapults you to number one in the real, eternal list. It allows you to say:

“What do I do for a job? I’m an ambassador of the eternal, all-powerful King, who sees and is pleased by everything I do for Him. And what do you do?”