A Stove, a Toothbrush, and Martin Luther

Recovering the joy of ordinary work

Many people have fond memories of baking at a friend’s house. I also have fond memories of cleaning the stove afterwards with an old toothbrush.

Maybe it’s a side effect of growing up on a farm, but I have always associated work with pleasure. I didn’t exactly have a choice when it came to chores, so I opted for making them fun. I made up stories about what I was doing and why. I avoided dinosaurs and Sleestak while I rode the tractor in the back field. I was accompanied by Nancy Drew and friends as I weeded the green beans and carried feed to the rabbits.

So it’s no surprise that when I was at a friend’s house baking up some desserts with whatever was handy (we decided to name our cookies “Chicken Sh*t”), I had just as much fun afterwards taking the stove apart and cleaning it until it gleamed. There was satisfaction in the attention, the problem-solving, and the visible difference my efforts made.

A little theological housekeeping. AI-generated illustration created with ChatGPT; concept and art direction by Susan Marie / Scenescape Media.

When Work Became Second-Class

I loved work long before I knew what to call that love. But at some point I started to hear messages that described a division between ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’ work. Efforts not directly tied to a church ministry were, at best, second class, and sometimes even spiritually suspect.

I don’t recall exactly when and where those messages began, but I can say with confidence that they gelled when I was at Bible college:

Ministry is primarily conducted at church or through a church program.

Employment supplied the money to support a household and contribute tithes and offerings.

These messages collided with my simple childhood instinct to add a little joie de vivre to life’s labors. To be clear, it was communicated that being a reliable worker, stewarding one’s finances well, and supporting one’s family were things that mattered. The work itself may have been respectable, but it wasn’t respected as having spiritual substance. It was clear to me that some strongly believe that explicitly religious activities rose far above what occupies most of us during an ordinary week.

On occasion I encountered some extremes of this teaching. In one church I attended, the pastor frequently referred to full-time ministry (as a pastor or a missionary) as “the highest calling.” Young people who “surrendered” to full-time ministry were praised and applauded. At youth camps, the closing bonfire became the setting for tearful commitments to give their lives to Christ.

Of course, this usually left out girls entirely. The best any female could do was “surrender” to be a pastor’s or missionary’s wife. Ugh. I could understand the desire to do something meaningful with your life. What troubled me was how narrowly that meaning had been defined.

In spite of my instinctive resistance, those lessons tried to soak in. It was a struggle to not feel like any time spent in tasks other than “ministry” only held value in making those spiritual activities possible. Over time, I recognized how much of ordinary life I was regarding with guilt or suspicion.

It’s probably no surprise that extreme views about daily life and work held hands with other extreme views. These eventually showed up as damage in my family and my marriage. I was glad to leave those churches behind for teaching that focused on, as Paul put it in 2 Timothy 2:15, “rightly dividing the word of truth” instead of just “dividing.”

A Few Things to Unlearn

I took time out after the collapse of my marriage to just read, study, and pray. I sat for hours looking out of the window of my apartment, watching trees wave their branches at the clouds moving slowly across the sky. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was deprogramming, letting go of many bad ideas and attitudes as I sought what God had for me in Scripture, allowing the Spirit to lead and guide me to truth (John 16:13).

One Sunday morning I was sitting with my tablet, looking for a new book or commentary to study, when I saw Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, by Timothy Keller with Katherine Leary Alsdorf. I bought and downloaded it immediately, and probably read half of it before lunch. My reaction was pretty much summed up in “FINALLY!” I realized I had a conviction about everyday work long before I had an argument for it.

It was refreshing to have a better way to express how and why work honors God through the good it does for people and His creation. Competence, integrity, creativity, and care have spiritual significance within the work itself.

The Masks of God

The book introduced me to Martin Luther’s “masks of God,” which was Luther’s response to the idea that the church was “the entirety of God’s kingdom on earth” and “therefore only work in and for the church could qualify as God’s work”. (Keller, Ch.4)

He cites Luther’s treatise “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation”:

It is pure invention that Pope, bishops, priests, and monks are called the “spiritual estate” while princes, lords, artisans, and farmers are called the “temporal estate.”. . . . We are all consecrated priests by baptism.

Luther’s views serve as Keller’s central argument: God claims to feed every living thing, and does it through the farmer, the milkmaid, the truck driver, the grocer. Sure, he could use ravens to bring us food, as he did Elijah (1 Kings 17:6). But ordinary work is the ‘disguise’ God’s provision – daily bread, government, physical healing – arrives in.

Think about how cleaning makes a place more usable and pleasant. Caring for animals meets the needs of creatures dependent on us. Administrative work can remove friction and help people get what they need. Studying develops abilities that may later benefit others. Writing can help someone recognize an experience or consider an unfamiliar idea.

Adam’s first assignment, before the fall, was to dress and keep the garden (Genesis 2:15, KJV). So work was intended as a blessing, giving man purpose. Work was in the world before sin was. I enjoyed just sitting with that thought for days, and it inspired me to trace how work is viewed throughout Scripture. I’ll save you the suspense - Scripture never treats honest work as spiritually second-class, though it is unsparing about how hard and how often fruitless it feels.

Discovering that the ordinary activities filling my days were meaningful places of faithful service was a tremendous relief. The book gave me a way to understand something I had felt since childhood: there was goodness in the doing of good work.

Embracing the Workaholic

What an encouragement to be able to fully return to the pleasure of productive activity! I think that pleasure explains why I’ve never quite recoiled from the word “workaholic.” I know it’s a term meant to describe a real problem, but I’ve embraced it as shorthand for how much I enjoy being usefully occupied. With the line between work and pleasure drawn so faintly it’s barely visible, I can engage in gardening, writing, studying, or coaxing the last bit of grime out of a stove as a satisfying way to spend an afternoon.

Still, there is a distinction worth taking seriously. Enjoying work and being unable to stop working are different things. I can take pleasure in a task and still need to ask why I’m reluctant to put it down. Is it absorbing, or have I begun to feel that time only counts when I have something to show for it?

There’s something else I have to remember: my enjoyment of a particular pace does not make it a reasonable expectation for everyone around me. Something that energizes me may exhaust someone else. Loving work gives me something to appreciate about my own temperament; it also gives me a responsibility to notice when I’m turning that temperament into a standard other people are expected to meet.

The Hours Had to Come from Somewhere

But sometimes my love of work still encounters a substantial test. Six years ago I made the decision to go back to college. I earned an associate degree, a bachelor’s degree, and an MBA while working full time. My goal was to build a more secure future for myself as a single woman. I enjoyed the learning and believed in the purpose. But believing that something is worth doing does not make room for it in an already full life. The hours had to come from somewhere.

Some came from evenings with my family. I could finish an assignment knowing exactly why it mattered and still grieve the time I had missed with people I loved. Understanding the tradeoff did not make it painless.

Other costs accumulated more quietly. Between my job and my coursework, much of my life happened sitting down, looking at a screen. I gained weight, developed high blood pressure, and struggled with insomnia. I had planned for the academic demands more carefully than I had accounted for the physical and emotional strain of sustaining them.

I’m grateful for my education, but I want to be honest about what those years required. Calling something a demanding season does not settle the question of whether I’m managing it wisely. An endpoint matters, but my body still needs care before I reach it.

Relationships need attention while the work is underway. I’m learning to ask more than whether a goal is worthwhile. I also need to ask what pursuing it this way is costing, whether that cost can be reduced, and when the plan needs to change. Faithfulness includes being willing to reconsider the pace.

My worth before God does not rise and fall with my output.

The Fruit of the Spirit vs. Outlook

The fruit of the Spirit has to be able to survive contact with my Outlook calendar. Because ordinary work is deeply embedded in my spiritual life, I’m accountable for the kind of person I am while I work. I often revisit biblical principles such as the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22–23, KJV. The KJV uses the singular fruit and includes love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.

So how do I exercise the fruit of the Spirit in accordance with everyday work?

Love calls for compassion and consideration for the people I serve with my work. I can give the person who hits me up with a quick task at 4:50 p.m. a thoughtful response. I may need to say, “Let me look into this tomorrow,” but I can make sure they know what will happen next and that their concerns matter.

Joy means remaining open to the ordinary satisfaction of useful work. After streamlining a tangled process, I can appreciate that the next person will have an easier time. There may never be an award for fixing the instructions on a form, but there is pleasure in knowing that someone can now finish it without calling three departments.

Longsuffering and gentleness mean responding patiently when someone needs more time or an explanation needs to be repeated. When a coworker asks again how to run a report, I can walk through it without the sigh that announces exactly how much patience I’m exercising. It’s also an opportunity to ask what they find confusing. Maybe the explanation needs work, too.

Meekness means receiving correction without becoming defensive or making it a contest. When my manager points out an error, I can say, “You’re right. I missed that. I’ll fix it,” and follow through.

Temperance means governing my drive instead of allowing it to govern me. When I’m tempted to spend another evening tweaking something that really is “good enough,” I can choose stop. If I’m working late, I can schedule a follow-up email for the next morning so my preferred hours don’t become someone else’s perceived obligation.

Does Rest Really Need a Business Case?

I want to clarify that I don’t believe every waking moment needs to be productive. There’s quite enough dude-bro life hacking out there to give even the most laidback person a stroke. What troubles me about hustle culture is how easily the desire to use time well becomes the conviction that I must always be doing more with it. Even rest needs a business case: sleep so you can perform better, take a walk so you can generate ideas. Apparently, an afternoon is only defensible if it improves Monday.

My faith gives me a different understanding of what I owe my work. I am responsible for working conscientiously and caring about the people affected by what I do. I am also a finite person who cannot meet every need or pursue every worthwhile opportunity. My standing before God rests in Christ; no amount of efficiency can improve upon that. That gives me a reason to do good work and the freedom to leave some work unfinished. I can close the laptop while there is still something on the list. Whatever discomfort I feel in doing so, I have not become less loved or less valuable. I’m still learning to let that truth govern my stopping as much as my starting.

Every Good Endeavor gave me language for something I had understood, in a smaller way, while feeding rabbits and cleaning a friend’s stove. There was goodness in tending to what needed attention. The pleasure I took in that work was something I could receive with gratitude.

I’m still learning how to enjoy work without asking too much of it, or of myself and the people around me. Some days that means giving a task more care. Other days it’s accepting that I have done enough for now, even when I can see what remains unfinished.

I am still the girl with the toothbrush. There is satisfaction in getting the last bit of grime out of a stubborn corner. But I want to be able to put the toothbrush away, too, and spend the evening with people I love. I don’t stop serving God when I leave church. And when I take time to rest from life’s labors, I am still His.