Of Man And Work

Of Man and Work

The story is told of a man in Tampa who was looking for a Job. He applied at several places without any luck. Walking on the streets, he came upon a man and he asked him if he knew of any place where he could find a job.

—¿Do you know how to fish?—the man asked him.

—¿Fish?—he asked back, kind of puzzled.

—Yes, fish… —the man answered—if you know how to fish I’ll pay you $50.00 dollars a day plus room and board.

—I think that you have found your man: if there is one thing I like to do, it’s got to be fishing.

—The boat is leaving in a few minutes. Go directly to the marina and you’ll find it. Its name is Brandywine. I’ll meet you there in a while and I’ll show you what to do.

The man couldn’t believe it. He had found a great job for just fishing. He was gonna get paid to go fishing! When he got to the pier he found it. It was a great boat. He climbed on board and found himself in fisherman’s heaven: all kinds of fishing gears of all sizes and shapes.

His employer showed up a little later and proceeded to explain what he needed to do.

—Once we are in open sea, you need to take two fishing rods. Put the bait in one of them and throw it in. Take more bait and prepare the second rod. When the fish bites one of the hooks, just take it out and put some bait back on.

—No sweat!—the man said.

So once they were out on the open sea, the man took one of the lines, put the bait on it and throw it out. He had barely began to work on the second line when the first one had already caught a fish. He hurried to throw the second line on the water. He pulled the first line out and he hadn’t finished cutting the fish out when the second line had already caught a fish. So he hurried to set the bait and throw the line out again. He pulled the second line and by this time the first line had caught a fish again. And this continued for the next two hours.

There were fish all over the deck and the man was exhausted. Thick drops of sweat dropped from his brow, while he runned from one line to the other. Finally, in frustration, he dropped both lines on the deck and exclaimed:

—This is not fishing, this is work!

Contrary to the way we view recreation, work is something that we consider with dismay. If we could only live without working! It seems as if we spend all our life working. It seems as if we didn’t have time to do anything else. Yet some hate to work while others turn into workaholics.

People have said a lot of things about work. A Spanish writer said: “Work is the only practical consolation to the fact that we were born.”

Truth is that on this life we’ll find our fair share or work. And I’m sure that you dream of that day when the Lord will take away time and work and our only pastime will be to play an air guitar on a cloud, when there’ll be no more work to do anywhere. It seems as if our motto were: “Until the Kingdom of God, for there will be no work there.”

How do you picture heaven?

Matt. 20:1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard.

Matt. 20:2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

Matt. 20:3 "About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.

Matt. 20:4 He told them, `You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’

Matt. 20:5 So they went. "He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing.

Matt. 20:6 About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, `Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

Matt. 20:7 "`Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. "He said to them, `You also go and work in my vineyard.’

Matt. 20:8 "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, `Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

Matt. 20:9 "The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius.

Matt. 20:10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.