Faith & Insight: Make work cool again

It’s rewarding to put in a hard day’s work and look back at it and see what you have accomplished. My mom and dad were both hard workers and brought me and my siblings up to be the same.

Sometimes I wonder if our culture today shares the values of working hard for both our needs and our desires. It seems often we have an attitude of entitlement. We think we should have everything (and more) just like our parents and grandparents had, but never really understand how hard they worked for what they had.

Mike Rowe, the former host of the TV show “Dirty Jobs,” said: “If you want to make America great again, you’ve got to make work cool again.”

Is work no longer in style? Is it not “cool” to have a job?

The Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 said: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

That seems a little harsh in today’s culture. Most churches do their best to help the hungry, and we should. But how do we get today’s culture back to understanding the benefits of hard work?

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, said we should “work as though everything depended upon work and pray as though everything depends upon prayer.”

I think this is a good motto for us as believers. We need to commit to both work and prayer. Be examples of both in our world today. Let people see something different in us and teach our children the same.

A political party isn’t going to make America great again, but the church, under the authority of Christ, can.

If we’re willing to be the examples of Christlike individuals, as we’re called to be in our communities, at our jobs and in our churches, then we can be the change our great nation needs. Let’s work together to “make work cool again.”

Captain Mark Cyr is pastor of the Salvation Army, 661 Colorado St., Carson City, NV 89701. For information, go to carsoncity.salvationarmy.org.