Today was physically hard. So far this year, the last three days have been the most demanding I've faced. Everything aches. Ha ha. It always takes me time to get used to it as the level of physicality increases. You never get caught up. It isn't as though you can quite finish everything before you go home.

It's good for me to work physically hard, spring through fall. If I didn't have this sort of job I can imagine how the amount of 'winter tallow' I manage to accumulate, even though I work out, would mount up. Maybe it's easier for me to depend on the work rather than to be more disciplined about working out harder. I'll have to think about that one. When you have the sort of job that I have, part of the time physical and part of the time clerical, you have to balance your hard work with your hard work--outs to stay in shape and be able to continue to do a good job.

It's no less important for me to be diligent and to keep a balance between the spiritual work I have to do, and the spiritual work--outs I choose to do. If I didn't ever have spiritual work to do, I might get spiritually fat, or even fatheaded. It's more likely that when the times, or opportunities to work spiritually would come along, I would not be in the spiritual shape I would need to be in to do competent work. Even though we are to study to prepare and be ready to be used when we are called upon, I know that God does the part of the work that we can't, the part that matters most. Think of it this way though, if our part of the work wasn't important, He wouldn't have laid it out ahead of us in time, for us to participate. We get to work for the Master and Maker of everything that there is.

We aren't always privy in this life to all of the things the work we do is intended to bring about. Spiritual work, though quite often fulfilling and enriching, can also be painful. Sometimes we have to do things we prefer not to do. But the slight discomfitures we experience pale in comparison to the joy we feel when we know we have been faithful to the Lord and having accomplished even some small thing He has given us to do.

I have my days where I would prefer not to go to my job, but on those days I usually feel better after I do. I believe there will always be spiritual work to do, and I thank God for that.

2 Chronicles 15:7
Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.