Day 9 of Embracing Your Creative Gifts: Jesus Sanctified the Work of Our Hands

 

 

Is not this the carpenter . . .? – Mk 6:3

The vast majority of Jesus’ human life was lived in quiet among the people of Nazareth. Like St. Joseph, who served in the role of Jesus’ father on earth, Jesus was a carpenter. He would have learned the trade at St. Joseph’s side from the time he was a boy. Jesus spent his day as a craftsman, working with wood, building functional, and no doubt beautiful, furniture for others to use. He used his hands to create, thereby sanctifying the act of craft and the work of human hands forever.

Think about that again. For most of his life, Jesus was a working man, earning his daily bread and, after St. Joseph’s death, providing for his mother Mary by the work of his hands. Jesus, the Son of God, who could easily have performed miracles and never would have needed to worry about putting food on the table, chose to live as we do. He chose to make tangible goods that served a purpose.

In the course of our daily lives, we can sometimes fail to see the value in what we are creating. We prepare meals only to have them be consumed in a matter of minutes. We do laundry or clean floors that get dirty again by the end of the day. It is easy to get bogged down in the drudgery of daily chores and lose sight of the fact that in doing these seemingly mundane activities we are helping to create a healthy and comfortable home environment, a pleasant place to live out our days.

In the workplace, we may do the same thing over and over. We might be helping customers or inputting data or creating reports. Unlike in previous generations where most people worked creating a tangible good or offering a service, we may not get to physically see the fruit of our labor, but in all we do, we are helping to build a culture and impacting those we work with.

In his humanity, Jesus knew what it was to work, to build, to create. He is with us in all of our work.

Prayer

Dear Jesus, please be with me in all the work I do today. I offer it all to You. May the work of my hands help to build Your kingdom.

Action

When working today, whether in the home or in a workplace, try to focus on the bigger picture. What are you contributing to the world? How can your work make life better for others?

 

This is an excerpt from The Work of Our Hands. (Amazon affiliate link)