Work We Must, but the Lunch is Free

John has been a general contractor for most of our married life. With so many people loosing their homes, the demand for new homes is not what it used to be. The slump in the economy is turning into a blessing that we never anticipated.

We don’t have the money to do what we used to do, but we like this new life. John has more time to spend with the children and with me. We have time to talk about what really matters in life, and we’re able to study and learn.

This last year we’ve seen a miracle in our family. When we look back at our income in 2011, we realize that we earned as much this last year as we used to earn in a month. How can you raise a growing family on that? I don’t know. That’s why we call it a miracle.

This much I do know. We’re happier than we’ve ever been and have sufficient for our needs. We still have plenty to do, but we don’t have much money to think about.

Work We Must, but the Lunch is Free

Two employers are competing for the services of the man Adam and his posterity . . . “the devil inviteth and enticeth continually” to work for him, while on the other hand, “God inviteth and enticeth continually” to work for him. Moroni 7:12-13

The first employer offers us lunch, and since lunch is something everybody must have, he is in a powerful position to bargain. He explains that this glorious earth is his private estate and that it all belongs to him. He is willing to make a deal with anyone who has money. To have merely sufficient for your needs, however, is not what he has in mind – that would be the equivalent of the free lunch. The shrewd employer must never cease reminding one and all in his domain that there is no free lunch. It is that great teaching which keeps his establishment going.

So let us go across the road for an interview with the Other Employer. To our surprise, he answers our first question with an emphatic: “Forget about lunch! Don’t even give it a thought!” “Take no thought of what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewith ye shall be clothed!”

We have been permitted to come here to go to school, to acquire certain knowledge and take a number of tests to prepare us for greater things hereafter.

While we are at school our generous patron has provided us with all the necessities of living that we will need to carry us through.

Imagine, then, that at the end of the first school year your kind benefactor pays the school a visit. He meets you and asks you how you are doing.

“Oh,” you say, “ am doing very well, thanks to your bounty.”

“Are you studying a lot?”

“Yes, I am making good progress.”

“What subjects are you studying?”

“Oh, I am studying courses in how to get more lunch.”

“You study that? All the time?”

“Yes. I thought of studying some other subjects. Indeed I would love to study them – some of them are so fascinating! – but after all it’s the bread-and-butter courses that count. This is the real world, you know. There is no free lunch.”

“But my dear boy, I’m providing you with that right now.”

“Yes, for the time being, and I am grateful- but my purpose in life is to get more and better lunches; I want to go right to the top – the executive suite, the Marriott lunch.”

“But that is not the work I wanted you to do here,”

The Lord asks us to forget about lunch, and do his work, and the lunch will be taken care of. (Excerpts taken from Hugh Nibley Approaching Zion pages 209-212)

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also . . . Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? . . .

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? . . . for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6:19-34

Do you really think God means what he says? If we seek first His kingdom, will he take care of us? I wonder if a slumping economy really matters. What do you think?