Why Then Should We Work

— by Amanda Lawson

In preparation for teaching our course “Integrating Faith & Entrepreneurship,” I have spent hours looking for the content to add to the curriculum. I came across a book called How Then Should We Work by Hugh Whelchel. It’s a good read and asks some provocative questions. 

But if I’m being honest, I think I’ve struggled much more with a similar, perhaps more cynical question: why then should we work? It’s a question I believe many of us ask when we are in dry or hard seasons. So many times, we ask the hard questions, quickly shove them aside and try to grin and bear it until we either forget the question or life gets easy enough that it doesn’t seem to matter. That isn’t always a bad strategy, but I believe this is one question that deserves an answer. 

I’ll be candid, I woke up this morning to news of yet another devastating tragedy in Haiti. I serve on the board of directors for an organization in the northern part of the country, just outside of Cap Haitien. I’ve been involved in the organization for a decade and have been on the board for three years. It is a country very close to my heart and my time in Haiti has had a profound impact on my life—from the college I attended and the focus of my master’s thesis to the way I spend my money and PTO. 

About six years ago I was on a trip to help with the building of a high school. On the one hand, it was so hopeful: this was going to be one of the only high schools in that part of the country and would be able to serve a massive number of students. And on the other hand, one high school in a country with few jobs and few students who could afford 9-12 years of schooling (both financially and because of family obligations) felt like less than a dent of progress. Sitting in the back of a pickup truck driving through downtown Cap Haitien, I started to cry, lost in strong and conflicting emotions, feeling like nothing we were doing was making any real difference. 

2021 has been a tragic year for Haiti, a country that was already struggling to overcome centuries of political and economic turmoil. On top of ongoing battles with COVID-19, the assassination of the president, followed by a devastating earthquake, subsequent hurricane, increase in gang activity that led to more violence and less gasoline (which is necessary to operate life-saving generators throughout the country), and most recently, an oil tanker explosion that killed upwards of 60 people, the picture of 2021 in Haiti has been incredibly dim. 

This morning, I woke up to the news of the oil tank explosion. When I’m in Haiti, I drive by the spot where it happened almost daily. Now, I’ve never woken up to an email that my company was hacked or that we lost all of our money, but I do understand what it is to wake up to news that people you love, people you have worked with, have had their lives uprooted overnight. I’ve seen those houses, I know the community. What I don’t know is how to move forward when it feels like everything is truly meaningless. 

I understand that this isn’t the chipper, encouraging message we love to hear as entrepreneurs. We want the stories of overcoming obstacles, of underdogs going public, and of products that change the world. They’re easier, more palatable. But I think there’s value in the honesty in hard things. The truth is, we don’t know how to reconcile the devastation like that which has taken place in Haiti and places like it. I’ve found myself constantly asking the question this year: why then should we work? If Haiti is just going to be continually plagued by corruption and political turmoil, natural disasters, and gang rule, what’s even the point? 

Some days, remembering the lives that have been changed for the better, the children who get to go to school, the churches that have concrete buildings instead of outdoor meetings subject to nature’s whims is enough to keep my heart in it. Other days, it’s not. 

How do we fight what feels like a losing battle? Why do we do the work when it feels like nothing is going to make a difference? I’ve wrestled with this question so much in my job and work I’ve been a part of in Haiti. I think the reality is that the world is broken and it’s not meant to last. The hope in it is that it isn’t going to last. And when the hits just don’t stop, when I’m losing the fight to stay motivated, I have to remember why I started in the first place. 

I can’t deny the calling I felt. As much as days like today—years like this year—make me want to close my eyes and run far away from this fight, I can’t pretend to not know. The outcomes can’t be my motivation. Obedience has to be my motivation. Because regardless of your eschatology, some day, all of this world is going to look drastically different. Whether everything is burnt up or redeemed to something more, what we “produce” won’t look the same. What endures is our obedience, our worship; worship not only in the gazing at the Lord, singing and declaring His holiness way, but in the Romans 12:1-2 definition of a life fully laid down and surrendered to God’s will. 

So what do we do when the things we are called to explode, shake, flood, or otherwise make us want to scream and run in the opposite direction? Practically, I don’t know. I’ve fought plenty of losing battles and I recognize that there are so many people fighting much harder things (the people living in Haiti, for example), but I can’t say I’ve found any great coping mechanism. I also believe that it’s ok, maybe even Christ-like, to weep over those battles and to be honest about the struggle. 

Jesus wept at the death of His friend and He looked at the masses with compassion. Paul and the Ephesian elders wept together at his departure, knowing they would not meet again in this life. The early Church faced persecution that we cannot imagine—case in point, Revelation 2:13 mentions a man who was martyred by being boiled alive in a vat of oil because of his faith—yet persisted because of the call and commission of the gospel, not because they converted the Roman Empire. 

The hope I can offer here is that obedience endures when other outcomes do not. We honor the call because of who called it and we have to trust that He had a good and holy reason to do so. And also, it is okay to weep over the fight. 

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