| Get to Work! “We urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”1 Thessalonians 4:10b-11 This past Sunday, I spoke to you about the Lord God commissioning Adam to work before sin entered the world. It is vital to grasp that for men and women, work is nota part of the curse of sin, but a major part of God’s purpose for our lives. We are each gifted for work and should actively, and to the best of our ability, use those gifts in work toward the end that God created us. There is a crisis in America today of young men not entering the workplace in full and skilled employment. Every year the numbers of young men entering college, skilled trade schools, legitimate entrepreneurial business, or entering military or police service continues to alarmingly decline. The doctrine of work certainly applies to women as well, but its application is different and young women are not facing the same crisis as young men at this moment in history. This generation of young men will never reach the full potential God has for them and will never function as the godly husbands they could be apart from fully embracing work. Embracing hard and full-time work is the primary path to financial independence and is used by God to train self-control, diligence, courage, faith, selflessness, and leadership into every young man that will rise to the call of vocational work. I would like to explore some thoughts on this subject. These thoughts relate to parents and their sons. This relationship is joined, and as a rule, rise and fall together. Parents should be raising their sons with a mindset toward independence and marriage. Independence precedes marriage, but independence is not making a way for aloneness. Independence makes a way for a new family to be formed; to leave father and mother and cleave to one’s wife. One of the problem sin our modern day is the over-abundance of choices for young men. I believe it is wise that young men be required to work from their teens forward at some gainful employment outside of the house. This is basic training that work produces income, which allows for freedom of action and the opportunity to give. It’s basic training on punctuality, trainability, financial literacy, and following commands. Once a young man gets working, it’s not too hard to keep the momentum going. After high school, again, the number of options can become overwhelming. College should not be the de facto next step. I suggest you break down the options into basic categories: professional work, corporate business (including military /police / fire), trade work, and entrepreneur. Help your son assess where his gifts and interests are located, and start exploring the options. You can read more about this from a chapter I wrote related to these issues: HERE. Each area can provide full-time career-based work. Each area has a path of requirements that must be worked toward for success. Each is competitive and will involve failures to be overcome. A young man may start in one area and end up in another, but not working full-time should not be an option. A start in the military or police may lead to an opportunity for college expenses to be covered. A trade summer job may lead to apprenticeship and licensure. Working for a small business may give the vision for also pursuing your own business. Each life will be slightly different, but there are basic paths to success. Either way, help your sons think through the options and help them through the first doors to get started. I remember clearly requiring my oldest son to sit through a full interview and application, even though a friend of mine was giving him his first job. It made my son answer tough questions and feel the weight of sitting in the boss’s office. It gave him the opportunity to check the “I’ve never been convicted of a felony” box on the application and consider what would have happened in the interview if he had to check that box. Halfway through each of my boys’ first summer of work, the work stopped being fun and they wanted to quit – but a man of his word and a diligent man does not quit what he has begun before a natural/ respectable point of closure. They each had to finish out the summer and give a proper two-week notice before moving on. Let’s also look at some common pitfalls that need to be avoided. The number one pitfall I see for why young men do not launch properly into full-time work, and thus independent manhood, is that parents enable them to not work by continuing to feed, house, and pay their bills as if they were small children. The Bible is clear, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). This means very basically, if a person is able to work, but due to laziness will not work, their literal hunger pains should drive them to work so they can eat. This is the word of the Lord. If you are a parent enabling an able-bodied young man to work less than full-time (or two part-time jobs joined), so they can lay around playing games (video or otherwise), watch movies, or some other non-productive way of living – you are the primary cause of their laziness. You are enabling their failure to work. The second pitfall to avoid is the failure to press them forward. Pitfall number one is avoiding a problem, but you must counter laziness with intentionally pressing your sons forward into opportunity. Like all of us, it will take time to find their way, but the unbroken expectation is that they will find their way. This involves active conversations, hard deadlines, networking conversations, personal character, person hygiene, and reviews of their life and direction. You must actively push baby bird out of the nest! Not flying, is not an option. Third, parents and sons must work together to avoid debt. Starting the debt snowball at a young age can cripple young adulthood and cause major long-term stress. We live in an advertising, debt oriented, materialistic culture, where we feel entitled to have what we want. Our young men must learn early to live within their means and live with financial self-control and wisdom. This is particularly related to parent encouraged, or enabled, student loan debt. Student loans are debt like any other debt, in that it must be paid back. Consider very carefully the amount of debt that you encourage your son to enter at a young age. Let’s walk by faith believing that work was created by God, and that work is both good and essential. Let’s pray for, love, encourage, and also press, inspire, and launch our young men into independence. May this independence lead to marriage and joyful stable families. Let us parent with courage and by faith, Pastor Vic |
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