Understanding Our Work Through God's Work

In Working Your Way Into Heaven, Cardinal Stefan Wyszinski immediately elevates our understanding of work to the highest possible level. He does this by going right to "the source" (John 5:17), where Our Lord Himself tells us:

My Father has never ceased working, and I, too must be at work.

Yes, God works! Turning to the book of Genesis, the Cardinal explains:

God's "Let there be" contains in itself creative thought and achievement at the same time...God conceived the world from all eternity and became the beginning and end of all being and all activity.

Just as we all learned as children, God sustains all of His creation all the time. Without His will, nothing would have been created and nothing that was created would continue existing. As Cardinal Wyszynski reminds us:

If God were to deny His power to the world, even for an instant, it would all be plunged into lifelessness and the shadow of death.

To help us understand the nature of God's work, Cardinal Wyszynski turns now to Psalm 103.

O Lord my God, thou art exceedingly great.
Thou hast put on praise and beauty:
And art clothed with light as with a garment.
Who stretchest out the heavens like a pavilion
Who coverest the higher rooms thereof with water.
Who makest the clouds Thy chariot
Who walkest upon the wings of the winds.
Who makest Thy angels spirits
And Thy ministers a burning fire.

We see the work of God's hands, the power at His disposal, and how He creates all to accomplish His plans.

Who hast founded the earth upon its own bases:
It shall not not be moved for ever and ever.

God's works are exact, perfect, and lasting.

The deep like a garment is its clothing:
Above the mountains shall the waters stand;
At Thy rebuke they shall flee:
At the voice of Thy thunder they shall fear.
The mountains ascend, and the plains descend
Into the place which Thou has founded for them.
Thous hast set a bound which they shall not pass over;
Neither shall they return to cover the earth.

Cardinal Wyszynski explains:

It is God's mighty power that raises the peaks of the mountains up out of the heart of the earth, covering them with His glory. It is God by the power of His will who carves out the valleys and mountain crevices, who spreads out the fertile fields like carpets, snatches the waters of the sea up to the heavens and rains them as dew onto the harvests of the earth. It is God's thought that forms the face of the earth in a wonderful way, ornamenting it with the flashes of His beauty.

Everything in our world receives life directly from God's hands. We and His whole creation are his handiwork. You can't possibly exaggerate the importance of this, but it's so easy to forget or, worse, ignore. Our daily life simply gets in the way. We're so busy with all those pressing items that fill our days, we easily lose sight of this great fundamental reality. But please remember this: If we fall into this trap, besides losing sight of the awesome reality of our Creator, we short-change the importance of your own work. Next time we'll see exactly how an understanding of the work of God elevates the status of our own work.

For now, let's try to remember as we go about our business, that we will work, in a real sense, side-by-side with Our Father in Heaven: We, in a modest way, to diligently attend to our appointed service; He, in infinitely grand fashion, to sustain us in our efforts even as He sustains the entire universe.