Honest Labor

        I was reading about the founding fathers of America. Men like Roger Sherman and Samuel Huntington and Stephen Hopkins were all self-taught men who labored industriously. Stephen Hopkins was known for his honest, industrious labor, and the rewards from that labor. He was a farmer and a mercantilist, and even came into the governorship of the colony of Rhode Island. He learned mathematics, astronomy, Roman and Greek history as well as literature from Milton and other English writers. All this he did from books without a formal education. He was also a signer of the declaration of Independence. He enjoyed the fruit of his honest labor, and even helped free slaves he had as well as stopped the slave trade in Rhode Island. We Americans don’t know very much about this imperfect Christian because it’s not being taught in schools. We are taught that we are entitled to jobs and retirement and cars and big houses because we’re Americans, and labor not for it.

        Americans aren’t entitled to anything in this world. Americans have always proven themselves to be honest laborers and Industrious. Look at Walt Disney and George Washington Carver and even John F. Kennedy: these men in their respective fields did well and prospered with honest, diligent labor. Walt Disney was an Animator that started the classic Mickey Mouse. George Washington Carver was the man who worked diligently, with the help of God, to find out how many ways people can use the peanut as a crop instead of cotton. He was a black man in the south at the time of reconstruction, and went before congress because of his accomplishments. John F Kennedy was a representative and a senator before he became president of the United States in 1961. He had problems with Addison’s disease, but still managed after a near death situation to write a book called Profiles in Courage. Kennedy was a Harvard graduate and a student of history as well as economics. But, he still managed to accomplish a lot for his honest labor. What have you done with your life? Do you feel like your labor is in vain? Other people don’t work as much and they get all the benefits, right?

        Well, I am struggling with the fact that an honest, industrious labor gets rewarded. I work hard to get where I am, and it feels like I’m going nowhere. But, God doesn’t want us to feel that way. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:12-13: “I know that there is nothing better for men than to rejoice and do good while they live, 13and also that every man should eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his labor— this is the gift of God.” Men in America have the satisfaction of enjoying the good of their labor because of the freedoms and the system that we have in this country. Not everyone in the world can say that. They try their best to imitate our system like in China after Mao died. God has blessed this nation with industrious, honest laborers. That’s how we had the technology to go to the moon, or the engineering skills to build the Hoover Dam, or the construction abilities to make buildings like the Empire State Building in New York or the tower in Seattle, Washington.

        There should be a reward for an honest day’s work. But, there are those in congress that don’t want Americans to enjoy the fruits of their labor. This Green New Deal takes away the joy of working with honesty and industry to go from rags to riches with diligence. America was founded on rags to riches stories, and I hope that will never change. Abraham Lincoln was a self-taught lawyer who became one of the best presidents of the United States. Not enough people are willing to step up with a work ethic, and embrace responsibility with joy. John F Kennedy said that he didn’t shiver from responsibility, but welcomed it. He also said in the same speech: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. There are too many people today who ask what the country can do for them and not enough people to serve the country with diligence. We are shrinking from our responsibilities as the sole provider of liberty and freedom in the world—mostly because we have forgotten God who gave us that liberty.

        The truth is: there is a reward for your honest, industrious labor—even when you don’t see it immediately. I have to see this for myself, and hope to God that He’ll reward me according to my honest, good works as will He do for you.