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.
