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By Keith Axberg - Special to the Madera Tribune

What do you think about work?

I like it. No, actually, I love it. I love my job. I love my co-workers. I love my hours and my duties. I am blessed, indeed.

It is unfortunate that so many people DON'T like their jobs. They dread getting up in the morning. They dread facing the daily grind (whatever it may entail).

I had a job like that once. I was a summer relief driver in Seattle, picking up and delivering laundry and dry cleaning on Queen Anne, Magnolia and Capitol hills. The pay was good and it helped me get through college virtually debt free. The customers were good, by and large, as were the other drivers, supervisors and business owners.

The equipment left a bit to be desired: old step vans well past their prime. The wipers quit working one day on the truck I was driving. Naturally, it was raining, and I was too far from the shop to run in for a repair, and had too many stops to make, so I did the only thing I knew how to do: I improvised. I attached a heavy-duty rubber band on the driver's side blade arm and attached it to the truck's grill, and then I tied a heavy string to the wiper arm. As I drove along, I simply pulled the string every so often to clear the windshield. I had to replace the rubber bands several times during the shift, but it worked and got me through the day.

Anyway, the problem with the job wasn't the people or the equipment, nor was it with the tasks and duties that went with the job, nor handling people's dirty linens (something I've dealt with all my life in one way or another).

No, what got to me by the end of each summer was the drudgery of a routine that never changed or varied to any significant degree. There was just something corrosive to my soul in doing the same thing day after day.

I know that there are many people who like having a routine in their jobs and who appreciate the regularity of assembly line. My hats are off to those who like that kind of work, for the good Lord knows we need people in every kind of work.

Which is why, even when I felt somewhat eroded by the job I was doing, I knew I was doing something important. I didn't work for the company. Ours was a service industry, which means I was working for the people I served, and customers always deserve our best effort.

"Work is about the creation of value" is a phrase popularized by Dallas Willard, a philosophy professor (at the University of Wisconsin, and later at USC).

When God created the human race, he created us for work. We were given a job to do long before sin entered the picture. We were called to be "stewards" or "caretakers" of creation. A farm has value, not because it has dirt or acreage, but because our farmers work the land. The land doesn't have value; people give it value. And if they really value it, they take care of it, rotating crops and doing whatever necessary to keep the soil healthy and productive.

The same is true of our own souls, our own lives. We need work, not to be of value, for God values each of us beyond measure. No, we need work in order to create value in the world around us.

I think if I had known that when I drove laundry trucks during those college-year summers, perhaps I would have felt less eroded in my life because, the fact is, I enjoyed the people I served (including the cranky ones), I enjoyed my co-workers, supervisors and business owners. What more could one need to be (and feel) fulfilled?

So, go forth and create value in this, our Valley (and do it with a smile, for smiles create the greatest value for the least work I know of).