I came across a Gallup Poll entitled: “Actively Disengaged Workers and Jobless in Equally Poor Health” Read more at GALLUP.com. That survey looked at the relative heath status of the Unemployed, Actively Disengaged, Not Engaged and Engaged workers. Engaged workers were about 50% more likely to rate their health as “excellent” than those in the other categories. When it came to obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression and heart attack, all were worse off than Engaged workers. But the ones that seem to experience the worst health circumstances were the Actively Disengaged workers.
I wondered how the results would look if you could pull out actively engaged Christ followers. My premise would be that actively engaged Christ followers would represent a higher percentage of Engaged workers. It seems to me that people who are actively living out their faith and learning to love God more would be the ones you would most often find engaged in their work and their world. As Dorothy Sayers said,
“The first demand on a carpenter’s religion is that he makes good tables.
What use is anything else if in the center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry.”
Which is sort of a paraphrase of what Paul penned to the Colossians in 3:23:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”
God has called us to a great adventure! Yes, we are aliens in a foreign land. And, yes, we are promised tribulation (though most of us in the US will never really suffer). But we are also promised joy and peace and the very presence of the God of the universe. If you are not engaged, I urge you to seek the heart of God and hear his voice. He is calling you to an adventure that will take your breath away.
(Note: The picture above is of Pastor Greg Nettle and a group from RiverTree Christian Church on the summit of Cotopaxi raising money for orphans)
