If God were not God, it would have been difficult to accept the fact that he created the universe in just six days. Six days?
How long would it take to create one planet and one star?
Yet, there are billions of them!
How long would it take to create our small but complex Earth, making it life-sustaining and forming an equally complex humanity to occupy it?
Even now, combining all our faith, it is still a tall order to conceptualise God’s working capacity and modus operandi.
He created our Earth and placed at our disposal an endless supply of resources to keep us alive.
And for billions of years, he continues to do so for us.
Dormant Accounts Access Bank
Therefore, on any World Labour Day, the One we want to celebrate and honour is the Almighty God who created the universe and keeps it running.
Kudos, workers!
Of course, we honour our co-workers at home and at our workplaces. We honour all agricultural workers and those who distribute foodstuff to reach us, including the traders who work hard to feed their families.
We honour our hard-working journalists and media personnel, including those who sometimes make us feel uncomfortable with their bizarre utterances and expansive jokes.
We can also appreciate politicians, can’t we, for what they do. We don’t mind them trading blame and counter-blame for their failures, but kudos to them for their contributions nevertheless.
Those who represent us at Parliament and those who govern us as Cabinet and related appointees all deserve our commendation, I believe; likewise, the Judiciary and their allies.
It feels good to learn how the long list of security services personnel is able to protect our territorial integrity by land, sea and air.
Their visibility is reassuring indeed, except for those times when we fall foul of the law.
If galamsey is “work”, we shall not commemorate it! Any activity that is detrimental to humanity should not be commemorated on May Day. Likewise, let children enjoy their childhood and not be labourers.
God at work
But, above all, we commemorate God Almighty for being the most celebrated worker! Is he not the one who keeps us alive and enables us to create wealth?
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Is he not the one who made the earth arable, endowing it with nutrients to grow crops that feed us? Is he not the one who endowed us with the brains to think and manufacture products for worldwide use?
What goes on around the universe is simply mind-boggling. As our Earth rushes around the sun, completing the journey in a year while turning on its orbit once a day, we don’t feel dizzy or fall off into outer space.
Why? Because God is at work holding the world in his hands. “He holds in his hands the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him” (Psalm 95:4).
In fact, God’s sovereignty, creation, and care are endless; for all existence is sustained and held together by his power.
Work heartily
What we tell every worker, we tell all: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,” (Colossians 3:23).
Work for God because the Lord himself is at work. Because God is the epitome of all work, every other work is a representation of what he does.
From him, we derive the dignity of labour.
When we are able to do what we do, it is God at work.
As the heavenly bodies are rushing through the spacious universe, it is God at work.
When a farmer plants his seeds, goes to sleep and the seed germinates and grows, it is God at work.
When God created the world in six days, did he just set everything in motion and then go to sleep? Certainly not.
The Lord Jesus said, “My Father is always working, and so am I” (John 5:17).
He said this when he healed a paralytic at a poolside on a Sabbath Day to the irritation of the Jewish leaders. What the leaders failed to understand was that Jesus was the Lord of the Sabbath.
They got it all wrong when they thought people were made for the Sabbath.
Rather, Jesus stated that the Sabbath was made for people.
So Jesus would always work for the good of a soul, no matter what day it was.
One theologian explains that, “The Sabbath was created as a gift for human flourishing, rest and blessing, rather than a burdensome rule meant to restrict or enslave mankind.”
Take a rest
God Himself showed us the need to rest by resting on the seventh day of creation.
He also gave us the day to work and the night to rest.
So it is a good thing that labour activists advocated an eight-hour working day and rest at the weekends.
We, too, should build rest into our working life, for that is also divine.
