Genesis 47

Your Occupation

What is your occupation? Genesis 47:3.

What is your occupation? “Oh!” you say, “I haven't got an occupation yet. Father has, of course, but I must wait till I am a little older before I have one” Well, if you will excuse my contradicting you so flatly, I should like to say that you are quite mistaken. You have an occupation already, not one, but several.

Not so long ago a boy of twelve went to the Post Office Savings Bank to deposit a little money. The girl behind the counter handed him a form on which he had to write his name and his address. There was also a space marked “occupation,” so he filled it in “schoolboy,” and he was very angry when the girl behind the counter smiled.

Now, I think that schoolboy was quite right. Being a schoolboy was his occupation, and if he was putting his whole heart into it, it was just as important an occupation as any. We all have an occupation at that rate. Mother's is making a home and looking after your comfort, and a very hard occupation it is sometimes, though she doesn't grumble about it. Or maybe Mother works outside the home. Your little brother or sister (if you have one) has his occupation. He is busy learning to speak and to walk, and that is a highly important occupation.

But I am to go a step farther, and to tell you that your occupation is just whatever you may be doing at the moment. All the hours of your life are occupied somehow. Are you working? That's an occupation. Are you playing? That's an occupation. Are you sleeping? That's an occupation. Are you doing nothing? That's an occupation. Now let us have a look at some of these occupations.

1. What about the last doing nothing? That is often the hardest occupation of all, and the most tiring, and the most miserable. When you are going about bored and yawning, with your hands in your pockets, when you are trying to kill time and it won't kill, you are least happy. The life which is all one long holiday is not to be envied. Of course, I don't mean that you shouldn't rest sometimes. You should. The kind of occupation I'm running down is idleness, not rest.

In Holland in olden times they had a great way of curing idleness. When an able-bodied man who was fit for work was found begging he was seized and put into a pit. A tap of water was then turned on, and a steady stream of water was directed into the pit. But in the pit there was a pump, and if the man liked he could keep the water from rising and drowning him by working the pump. If he didn't he would certainly be drowned. Of course he chose to work the pump, and the experience taught him a lesson he never forgot. It's a pity there are not more of these pits and pumps around. Some of us would be none the worse of an hour or two of them.

2. Idleness is bad, but I'm sorry to say it leads to a worse occupation the occupation called “doing evil.” In a certain prison a list was kept of the trades which the prisoners had followed before they were taken there. Do you know the result? Out of one hundred names ninety had written opposite them the words “of no occupation.” They say that Satan is busy looking out for idle people. They are his best servants. Don't let him count you among the band of idlers whom he turns into evil-doers.

3. I am not going to say anything about the occupations of sleeping and playing, except that I hope you have plenty of both, and that when you play you play fair and make a good loser, for that is even finer than being a good winner.

4. I want to speak of what should be our biggest occupation our work. That is an occupation everyone should have, even though he be born a millionaire. It is being suggested I hope it will come to pass that every boy and girl should learn a trade at school, a trade, not an accomplishment such as playing the piano or painting. These too, but a real trade as well. That is what the Jews did in the days of the New Testament. That is how St. Paul was a tent-maker. Very likely he was a lawyer as well, but he had learned the trade of tent-making as a boy at school, and when he had to earn some money to keep himself he wasn't ashamed to make tents.

And that brings me to the second remark I wish to make about work. It is this. No one should ever be ashamed of doing honest work, however humble it may be. Some folk foolish folk they are! think certain jobs are not good enough or fine enough for them. They turn up their noses at the idea of keeping a shop, or sweeping a floor, or cleaning the pavements. Such people are not only foolish, they are actually wicked. No one should despise work which is honest. The only thing to be ashamed of is work that is dishonest or badly done. That is the only work that is lowering or degrading to the worker. God put us into the world to work, and He made hard work honorable, and never said that one occupation was higher than another. Let me tell you a story.

During the American War of Independence some soldiers were moving a pile of timber which was required for some military purpose. It was heavy work, and they were short-handed, but the sergeant in command stood by and merely looked on. A plainly- dressed officer came up, and remarking that another hand was needed, asked the idle man why he gave no help. “Oh, I'm the sergeant,” was the reply in a tone which meant, “ I'm much too good for work like that.” The new-comer said nothing, but he stripped off his coat, worked with a will, and soon put the business through. Then as he pulled on his coat again he turned to the sergeant and said, “When next you're in a difficulty and want an extra hand, send for the Commander-in-Chief.” That Commander-in-Chief was George Washington, the liberator of the American colonies.

Boys and girls, would you rather have been the sergeant or the Commander-in-Chief? I know which I would rather have been. I know which I'd rather you should be, and I know also which Christ expects you to be.