What C.S. Lewis said after landing his dream job

The Word Before Work

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Series: Five Mere Christians
Devotional: 5 of 5

[Jesus said,] remain in my love...I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:9, 11)

The search for joy was the dominant theme of C.S. Lewis’s life. And he sought it apart from Christ in all the usual (and some unusual) places: alcohol abuse, an alleged affair with his dead best friend’s mom, and perhaps most relatably his career.

In 1925, after years of professional disappointments, Lewis landed his dream job as Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College in Oxford. In an induction ceremony that had all the pomp and circumstance a 467-year-old college can muster, Lewis knelt before the president of Magdalen College, who dramatically met his gaze and declared, “I wish you joy.” Lewis then rose and proceeded around the room, stopping in front of each new colleague who echoed the refrain: “I wish you joy,” “I wish you joy,” “I wish you joy.”

I guarantee you that in that moment, C.S. Lewis believed he had finally found joy in the ultimate. He had achieved his vocational dream! But by God’s grace, Lewis came to learn what every successful professional inevitably does: that without Christ, even a dream job will eventually turn into a nightmare. It is only by remaining in Christ’s love that “your joy may be complete” (see John 15:11).

Here’s how Lewis himself said it years later: “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Is it wrong to find joy in our work? Absolutely not! God created us to love our jobs (see Genesis 1:26-28 and Ecclesiastes 2:24). But Lewis’s story and today’s passage remind us that we mere Christians glorify God by finding our ultimate joy in Christ and not our work.

Is your mood perfectly correlated to whether you’re winning at work? Do you spend less time with the Lord when things aren’t going your way? Are you unable to enjoy God’s gift of rest from your work?

Take it from someone with loads of experience in this area: If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re probably looking to your work to provide you with the ultimate joy that can be found only in Christ.

If that’s you, let me encourage you to do three things right now:

1. Confess your idolatry to God and other believers
2. Meditate on the gospel
3. Ask the Lord for his power to enjoy the good gift of work without turning it into an idolatrous ultimate good

In doing this, you will be glorifying God as you work today!