Becoming a workaholic is easy in a culture that values us for our productivity. Everywhere we look, we see advertisements telling us to start side hustles, invest in our careers, climb the ladder, or build a 6 figure income. When we do, we are rewarded with praise from friends, family, and colleagues. But this gratification is temporary. Eventually, relationships suffer, health starts to wane, and family feels abandoned. The Bible tells us that we were created to work, but when work becomes an idol, it’s no longer applied as God intended. Is there hope for the workaholic? Ecclesiastes 2:18-26 provides biblical wisdom to achieve a healthy work-life balance again.
Recovering Workaholics Need to Realize The Emptiness of Work
We were created to work. However, putting too much purpose into our work is also dangerous. Like any good thing God created, work can be corrupted. Allowing what you do outside your home to define who you are can corrupt a correct assessment of value. Do you look to work for lasting meaning or identity? In Ecclesiastes 2, Solomon warns us that when you look to work for your identity, you neglect the most important things in life.
If your identity is married to your work performance, what happens when you fail or lose your job? What happens when you get so burnt out that you start to dread waking up in the morning? Solomon’s downward spiral in this passage can help us learn that humanity’s most significant achievements mean nothing apart from God. When what you do defines who you are, you are setting yourself up for spiritual failure. It will cause more harm than good. Even if you find success, how will you enjoy your huge house or luxury car if you have no time off and no relationships left? At the end of the day, work is only a means to an end. It has no lasting meaning. It can produce results, help people, build companies, or provide for financial needs, but by itself, it cannot give you what you’re searching for.
Recovering Workaholics Can’t Allow Their Work to Define Them
Work isn’t always a corporate job in an office. For some, your home is your work. Stay-at-home moms are the CEOs of their households. Don’t let anybody tell you that laundry, dishes, and instructing your children are not work. For others, your work is attending classes and being a faithful student. Applying yourself to your studies takes great effort and many hours. Rather than going to an office daily, your work is being part of a sports team and maintaining your athletic skills. Just because your work doesn’t fit into a cookie-cutter definition doesn’t make it less meaningful. However, it’s also not less likely to become an idol. Anything that’s an idol will control you, and you are in trouble if anything controls you other than God.
If you attach your worth to your grades, a D or an F could destroy you. If you don’t feel whole unless your to-do list gets done at home, a broken dishwasher could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. When work becomes your idol, you’ll spend too much time at work and give too much of your life to it. You will believe the lie that if the company would just succeed, you will be saved. Only God can save your soul.
Ministry leaders need to be just as careful not to let their work define them. It’s easy to let what you do for God influence how you believe God sees you. This is a dangerous foothold for the enemy to use.
Recovering Workaholics Shouldn’t Make Excuses
Some people ignore their workaholic tendencies by making excuses and justifying their compulsion to work endlessly. Are you working to provide for your children? Are you working to benefit the team of employees under you? Do you say, “it’s okay to work those extra hours because I’m doing it for ________?” These are all excuses to deny the harm your compulsion has caused. You say you’re doing it for them, are you? What your family needs is time with you. What your team needs is a healthy leader to model work-life balance.
If your work for others actually leads to neglecting them, it is not about them. You may have fears that they will not have what they need or they won’t see you as worthy, but those insecurities should draw you closer to the Lord. If you are instead drawn deeper into self-reliance, this shows a lack of trust in God’s provision. If you can’t take a day off without feeling worthless or fearful, then something inside you needs a readjustment.
Your workaholic tendencies should not be driven by a need to be remembered or leave a legacy. Your legacy isn’t in how much money you leave behind or how many tasks you complete. Your legacy will live on in the memories you make with the people you love. That’s hard to do if you’re not available. Do you believe God’s plan for your loved ones will continue when you’re gone? Or are you trying to be God for them?
Recovering Workaholics Should View Work as Worship
In everything you do, you worship God. We must abandon the idea that we live for Jesus on Sunday and live for ourselves the rest of the week. Adam and Eve worshiped God by tending the garden. So outside of your family, ask yourself: What is my garden? Your garden could be a home, an office, a classroom, an athletic court, or a field of play. That garden should be leveraged for His glory.
Colossians 3:23-24 says, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.”
He gets the glory from your attitude and your actions. When you see your work as worship, you’ll start fulfilling and exceeding the expectations your boss and company have set for you. Not because it makes you look good but because it honors the Lord. However, even if it doesn’t benefit you, God is still glorified, and you can still put your head on the pillow at night and sleep well because you’ve honored Him at work. He is worthy of your work ethic, and He’s worthy of you serving him with integrity at your job.
As you focus on building His Kingdom, you will naturally start to turn your attention to the people you work with. You will no longer see them primarily as coworkers but as people who need the love of Jesus. Your work relationships with employees, bosses, clients, and customers will become an opportunity where you can make disciples and spread the gospel.
A Prayer for Workaholics:
Heavenly Father,
When I return to work or school tomorrow, I pray that you will give me new eyes to see my work as worship. Give me a fresh passion to honor you in all I do. Please help me to turn from greed, fear, and selfish ambition. Instead, allow me to grow in compassion for those around me. Allow me to share the message of the gospel with coworkers and clients. Would you help me this week to view my home, my office, my team, and my school as a sacred place dedicated to your glory and honor? Open my eyes to see one person that I can share your love with this week. Release me, God, from finding my identity in what I do more than my identity in you. May I learn to rest well and trust you for purpose and provision. Amen.
