Pulitzer Prize winner and radio syndicate, Studs Terkel, wrote a seven hundred page book detailing what people do and how they feel about their working lives. He opens the project by stating that his book is about “ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around… about daily humiliations… It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread.”
He argued (in 1972) that people are looking for a sort of life rather than a sort of death in their Monday through Friday. The quest remains today.
Crisis of Meaning
In 1965, a spacecraft design change increased the voltage in Apollo 13’s oxygen tank heaters from 28 volts to 65 volts. The switches in the tanks, however, were not adjusted to handle the higher voltage. The switches failed and caused a small explosion in the oxygen tank. The problem surfaced as Apollo 13 attempted to land on the moon – 200,000 miles away from Earth.
The command control pilot, Jack Swigert, was the first voice to call back to the Kennedy Space Center, reporting, “Okay, Houston… we’ve had a problem here.” (That’s right - it’s not quite as dramatic as the Tom Hanks version.) The problem required a suspenseful return trip to earth with the splashdown landing you’ve seen on TV.
A similar design change occurred in modern work society and we are still adjusting the voltage. Reports continue to surface about a widespread societal problem – people lack purpose. A crisis of meaning pervades the modern experience, in particular, the workplace.
The Statue of Responsibility
One early voice detecting this problem was Victor Frankl, a professor of psychology and neurology at the University of Vienna. He called the meaning crisis an “existential vacuum”. Frankl survived four Nazi concentration camps and published Man's Search for Meaning in 1946, which the Library of Congress named “one of the ten most influential books in the U.S.”
He observed modern people have immense freedom, thus assuming they will live fulfilled lives. Frankl disagrees with this logic. He writes, “freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” 1
Frankl locates meaning in three specific areas: love, suffering, and purposeful work. He demonstrates that “purposeful work” entails meaningful responsibility. Lester Dekoster echoes Frankl’s logic when he wrote that “work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others.” 2 Instead of a burden to bear or a shackle to escape, they agree that work is a means to a satisfying life.
The idea of helping others while working used to be more obvious when you sold vegetables from your farm to the cobbler for your kid’s shoes - or traded a haircut for a dozen eggs you harvested. While local and personal work quickly correlates to usefulness to others, that experience doesn’t square for most workers today.
In a post-material knowledge economy, our work can be very non-personal and tend toward meaninglessness. In order to restore purpose to our workday, we must update our view of work so that it fits the 21st century economy.
A Better View of Work
Basic culture and civilization result from work. People eat. Governments form. Children receive care as a result of human work. In modern life, it’s a chore to find an aspect of your day not “made” by the work of someone’s hands: your bed, your coffee, your toothbrush, your watch and clothes, your car, your parking spot, your desk and computer, your favorite playlist (and earbuds), your lunch, your phone, the table and chairs for your afternoon meetings, the gym for your workout, the entertainment you watch before you are back to your toothbrush and your bed. 3
Someone “worked” to make all of these - and a truck-driver (currently, with a name) likely delivered all of these. Name the ways the work of others is useful to you. 4 Try it.
Andy Crouch tells the story of walking around O’Hare airport attempting to pay as much attention as possible to everyone he passed. He saw hundreds of people by the end of terminal 1. He looked for the image of God in old and young, short and tall, every ethnic background. He walked while glancing at faces and catching the eyes of people he would never meet - all the while saying to himself, image bearer, image bearer… image bearer. 5 It is a better way to see people, to name the unnamed. Try it.
If we adapted Crouch’s exercise, we see the useful work of others in every direction. The useful work of toilets and electricity, heating and air conditioning. The useful work of clean water and gasoline/batteries for your car, train stops and stop signs. The useful work of buildings - the windows and floors and walls and paint and lighting and landscapes that make modern, civilized life possible. This useful work serves others, and ultimately, serves God.
Yes, a right view of work includes God. It is not simply about your work and others' work. God’s work, which is another essay, includes his work through human agents.
God directs us to work for others – not ourselves. When we do, we discover meaning. Loving another leads to a significance and unavoidable fulfillment. Relationships form. Dare we say, work leads to happiness.
David Bahnsen goes as far as to argue work is the meaning of life. His new book, Full-Time, Work and the Meaning of Life is an unapologetic pro-work ideology. He claims that “work is the purpose of the human person, ordained as such by God.” which forms the basis of his argument that God designed all of us to function in familial, social, and communal context. 6
Bahnsen is pushing against two statistical observations of our day he classifies as a crisis of despair and an epidemic of worklessness. In his estimation, people are avoiding a God-ordained purpose to be productive and serve others. It is not surprising people are not reaping the rewards of labor that they haven't done. 7
Derek Thompson, the writer for The Atlantic, concludes workers are looking for more than a paycheck or name plate on the desk. While affirming the goodness and necessity of work, he suggests (counter-Bahnsen) we are asking too much of the role of work in our lives.
Thompson summarizes the history of work in six words: from jobs, to careers, to callings. The calling becomes your life. He explains, “many people today ask their jobs to provide community, transcendence, meaning, self-actualization, existential therapy–all things we have historically sought from organized religion.” 8
Thompson describes this as a shift from work as a means of material production to a means of identity production. 9 He labels it workism, or a gospel of work. Is he right–is work competing for congregants and replacing the traditional role of religious communities? Does his description hold that “a culture that funnels its dreams of self-actualization in salaried jobs is setting itself up for collective anxiety, mass disappointment, and inevitable burnout.” 10
In other words, we have confused our desks with our altars and there is a penalty to pay? If we bridge Thompson and Bahnsen, it becomes clear that we need a vision for work that is meaningful but not crushing.
Joy without Workism
In the modern era, people are considering meaningful relationships with AI-powered assistants. Large groups are streaming to Jordan Peterson’s moral solutions to find meaning. Young adults are even trending toward marathon training to find the missing joy. It’s elusive.
Jesus teaches his disciples about a group of workers, the investments they make, and the rewards they receive. You likely know it as “the parable of the talents.” I’ve read that parable a lot – I’ve even preached on it. One of the details I missed was the invitation to join the master’s happiness. After the work and resulting growth, the man who gave his wealth to be invested not only gave them more opportunity (the part I’ve focused on - “Good and faithful servant, I will put you in charge of many things”), but he asked the workers to share in the joy.
The crisis of meaning in society is a crisis of joy. The search for happiness is returning empty and while a missing link is certainly a right view of work (Frankl, DeKoster, Bahnsen, etc.), it is not only a right view of work.
We are designed to be with God. Created on the sixth day, day seven is day one for human beings. Before we get on doing all the good work that is planned and possible, we are invited to rest in a God who has worked before us. With God, you can avoid workism.
We always start with God’s work before proceeding to our work. 11 We rest first. And then we build, labor and toil with others for the good of all creation and the glory of God.
Christians hold a beautiful, joyful story to tell. People are desperately looking for good news that meets their longings and directs the quest.
So it’s true. God created human beings with a purpose to join Him in the ongoing work of creation and redemption. With ulcers and accidents? Sometimes. With breakdowns and humiliations? Yes. But it is never meaning-less.
And as we work, we pray, give us this day our daily meaning.
___________________________________________________
1 Frankl. V.E. (1992). Man’s Search for Meaning, 4th edition. Boston: Beacon Press, 134.
2 DeKoster, Work: The Meaning of You Life. A Christian Perspective. 3rd edition. (2011) p.1.
3 This is an adaptation of a similar exercise in DeKoster’s book.
4 There are two things I want to make sure are not assumed in this statement. First, ‘useful’ does not exclude artistic work—like painting, music, or other creative endeavors. Especially with an emphasis on meaning, the arts are vital contributors even though useful may not be a term artists want to embrace. Second, the term ‘others’ is impersonal and reflects the modern economy's expansive division of labor. We now know companies, not people, who make the products that make our lives work. You don’t buy from Adam, but Apple. You don’t shop with Abigail, but Amazon.
5 Andy Crouch, The Life We are Looking For, Convergent Books, 2022.
6 David Bahnsen, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, Post Hill Press, 2024. p. 70.
7 Bahnsen takes aim at pastors as a source of the misunderstanding. He writes, “I believe we need to become comfortable with saying that our meaning comes from God (most pastors are on beard here), and that our meaning comes from the work that we do–percisely because that is what God desires.” David Bahnse, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life (Post Hill Press, 2024), 82.
8 Derek Thompson, On Work, p. X.
9 Derek Thompson, On Work, p.35. Thompson notes this trend is particularly true for rich men.
10 Derek Thompson, On Work, p. 39.
11 In the words of Athanasius, “The renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning.” Athanasius, On the Incarnation. See Lakelight Press
Sign up for our newsletter
Resources for the formation of wisdom on the last Saturday of each month. Try it out.
