Monday, February 26, 2018
Work puts human beings in the world of things. It requires achievement from them. Christians step out of the world of personal encounter into the world of impersonal things, the “It”; and this new encounter frees them for objectivity, for the world of the “It” is only an instrument in the hands of God for the purification of Christians from all self-absorption and selfishness. The work of the world can only be accomplished where people forget themselves, where they lose themselves in a cause, reality, the task, the “It”. Christians learn at work to allow the task to set the bounds for them. Thus, for them, work becomes a remedy for the lethargy and laziness of the flesh. The demands of the flesh die in the world of things. But that can only happen where Christians break through the “It” to the “You” of God, who commands the work and the deed and makes them serve to liberate Christians from themselves.
-from Life Together, pg. 75
