Neal Pollard
Some people believe that work is a curse, drawing from the punishment meted out by God to Adam in Genesis 3:17-19. Others, missing Solomon’s bigger point, call work “vain” and useless (cf. Ecc. 2). Instead, in this fallen world, work is a tremendous blessing as it lends to our purpose and influence. Several passages extol the value of work. “In all labor there is profit” (Prov. 14:23). Elders who “work hard” at preaching and teaching are due “double honor” (1 Tim. 5:17). Like the virtuous woman, our works “praise” us (Prov. 31:31). In the context of the church, “proper working…causes the growth of the body” (Eph. 4:16).
It has been my experience that the idle and uninvolved within the body of Christ seem generally less happy and fulfilled in their Christian walk. That is perfectly logical because spiritual inactivity seems to cut against the grain of what it means to be a Christian. Consider what Paul says in Romans 12:11 about the Christian being “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” That word “fervent” means to boil or seethe, and is used to describe the great preacher, Apollos (Acts 18:25). Here, Paul urges us to put our heart and soul into what we do (cf. Col. 3:23). When you have that kind of disposition toward the church’s work, your happiness is guaranteed!
Watch the workers! Not always, but ordinarily you see a lift in their step, a gleam in their eye, and a deep-settled contentment in their deportment. You see it in the guys who use their hands to build, repair, and install. You see it in the women busily cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. You see it in the men and women buckled down and teaching in the Bible classes. You see it on the faces of the brothers and sisters at the workday, the door-knocking, the yard-raking, the nursing-home singing, the communion-preparing, the pew Bible and songbook repairing, and the like. They’re moving too fast and working too hard to engage in gossip, back-biting, and self-pity. They’re too engaged in the Lord’s business to be in everybody else’s business!
Do you want to get happy? Get busy! It’s heaven’s way to a happy heart!
The Preacher Pollard Blog 
True!
Neal, While I was in Belarus on a mission trip I was asked to leave a shop because I was whistling
Amazing Grace. I was told that the custom there was not to whistle. They believed that you were either calling up the devil or wasting time. It gave a new meaning to “I perceive that you are a superstitious people”.
Very strange, indeed. You wonder where these things originate?