Where Does God Spend Eight Hours a Day?
Perhaps you’ve never stopped to consider, but where does God spend eight hours a day?
Of course, we know that God exists beyond time and space. Both are His creations, and thus, He is not bound by them. However, whenever God needs to interact with humanity, He does so within the time and space for which man was created.
With this in mind, the question takes on a more tangible form. After all, if angelic beings manifest within this realm (as in the book of Psalms 34:7 – “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them”) or when God descends on the mountain amidst fire (Exodus 19:18) or when God fills the temple with His presence in a real historical, geographical, and political setting (Isaiah 6), to cite a few examples.
So, the question remains, where does God spend eight hours a day? Some might answer “in the church” (assuming the church is a physical place, for example). Others might say “in the church” (assuming the church is a mystical entity beyond the everyday). Others might say “everywhere.” Some, bordering on pantheism or fully manifesting it, might say “in all things.”
But the question remains valid. If we look at the life of Jesus, the answer is surprising.
Jesus Worked More Than He Preached
There is a stark difference in the time Jesus spent working (something like 20-plus years) and the time He spent preaching (around three years). Roughly speaking, He dedicated 90% of His life to learning and professional life, while a little over 9% was invested in ministry.
He accompanied His stepfather, learning the trade, how to deal with people, how to analyze materials, and how to work those materials to satisfy customers. He must have experienced good and bad times. Deadlines, quality, effort, fatigue.
Why did God choose to manifest His Son in this way?
The Division We Invented
Without realizing it, we’ve learned to divide life into two territories: the sacred and the secular.
The “church” (which for many means the physical building and not the people as in the Bible) has become a sacred place. It would be the site of contact between the earthly and the divine. A piece of holy ground where one walks differently, speaks differently, thinks differently than “in the world.” And this is emphasized on Sunday nights during a 90-minute ritual repeated to exhaustion.
It’s true that in the old covenant (or the Old Testament if you prefer), there was a well-established rigid separation. Instead of the orgiastic relations practiced by other peoples, the proposal God gave the Hebrew people when He chose them included a separation of the holy and the sacred, clearly seen in the burning bush, the veil of Moses, the institution of the priesthood, the tent of meeting during the desert, Solomon’s temple with all its glory, and the second temple with all the earthly splendor Herod the Great gave it.
In the new covenant, at the exact consummation of the perfect priestly sacrifice, the temple veil was torn. Matthew 27:51 describes it splendidly, with details hard to accept or believe but completely compatible with what was happening: a new kingdom (occupying the same time and space as the previous kingdom – Romans 5:21) had just been inaugurated, and – contrary to popular thought – the redemption of the entire creation had begun (not just the souls of some humans).
So, as I was saying, this new covenant, or testament, or era, is gradually perceived by the first disciples and gains momentum and spreads. This necessarily leads to re-reading and reinterpreting many things, but what becomes clear is that what was planned, promised, and awaited in the Old Testament is now crystallized in the new. And what do we see in the letters of the apostles and the author of the book to the Hebrews and the disciples of the apostles? All of them, in their letters, deal with everyday life because it is there that faith becomes concrete.
Work Reveals Who We Really Are
Perhaps God spends so many hours with us at work because it’s there that masks last the least.
Imagine yourself for a moment in those 90 minutes of repetitive communal worship. There are no surprises, hence no renewal of thought. There’s also little room for impatience, lying, or pride. If I only know you from Sunday night, we both might carry the impression that we are almost saints (not in the sense of chosen ones, but as people of impeccable conduct and thought).
Now, let me accompany you to work for a few days. Without you knowing that I am an evangelical pastor or your brother in faith. Just a new colleague at work. Or vice versa, you accompany me to my work. You, who started working in the same environment as I did last Monday.
It’s there where we will know and be known for patience, pride, ambition, lying, justice, generosity, forgiveness. The office, the workshop, the classroom, or the factory function as laboratories for true sanctification.
There is no longer a distinction between a sacred place and a secular one. What exists is the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven, depending on which evangelist you prefer) advancing and the gates of Hades being stormed by the movement of God’s children.
Work Was Never a Curse
Sin made work burdensome, not that work is an invention of Sin. (Note for readers, the distinction of usus loquendi between “sin” – lowercase – and “Sin” is to distinguish the former as personal decisions against God’s will, while the latter is the kingdom of sin inaugurated with man’s fall – Romans 5:12..)
Work was never a punishment; it was the original plan. From the beginning, God placed man in the garden to “work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15) and gave him purpose to rule and fill the earth (Genesis 1:28). Both creation accounts contain this same idea.
What became a curse was the frustration and pain that entered with the fall: “through painful toil you will eat food from it… by the sweat of your brow” (Genesis 3:17-19), and even the pains of childbirth point to this reality of tribulation (Genesis 3:16). That’s why creation groans “as in the pains of childbirth” (Romans 8:19-22) while God Himself does not give up on it: its restoration continues until the consummation of the “new earth,” when everything is made new (Revelation 21:1-5). Thus, the kingdom here and now is a continuation of the original plan, and also in the final manifestation, there will be service in the renewed world – not punishment (Revelation 21:3-4; 22:3-5).
Before the fall, then, there was already cultivation, care, creativity, organization, responsibility. The cultural mandate comes before sin. Fatigue is a consequence of the fall; work is not.
And simplifying the last big paragraph (but without which I would be leaving you in the dark about the biblical view): Working is part of the image of God. We create because we were created by a Creator.
God Continues to Work
Jesus said, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17). This statement is no joke.
We understand that the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice. And we also understand that it is a progressive self-revelation of God in the guise of human experience. Therefore, if Jesus (the ultimate manifestation of the Word of God) is saying that things are a certain way, we can rest assured that it is exactly that way and no other, no matter how similar it may seem.
God did not rest from creation because He lost interest in it. He continues to sustain, govern, reconcile, and guide history. Worthy work is a reflection of this God who remains active.
A Final Look at Eternity
In previous paragraphs, I nudged you a bit with the idea that eternity is a time/space of service. I left it simmering because perhaps it was already too much with the notion that work is not a divine punishment. Come with me now to take a look from the other end of history.
Perhaps our imagination about heaven (as God’s dwelling place and from where the celestial Jerusalem descends) is too small.
It’s not hard to find limiting caricatures of clouds, little angels with wings, harps, smiles like a gelatin or margarine commercial… well.
The Bible concludes its narrative with a city, not an empty garden. There is culture, kings bringing their glory, service, creativity, governance, and fullness. We will not work to survive, but because creation will finally be what it was always meant to be. Work ceases to be survival and returns to being joy.
Finally
Perhaps the question was never how to serve God at work.
Many times, pseudo-glorious stories are heard of people who steal from their employers by using work hours for proselytizing evangelistic actions.
Others have understood that “Bringing Christ to the office” means carrying a crucifix or reading the Bible in public. And other similar things.
It’s quite likely that it’s not about how to serve God at work, but discovering that He is already working there long before we arrive, and it’s quite likely that the only Bible people will ever read in their lives is just those eight hours they spend with us at work.
What would a company look like where Jesus worked eight hours a day?
And, even more uncomfortably: Could it be that He already works at yours?