How to Think about Rivals to Learning

"There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable" (C. S. Lewis, "Learning in Wartime" in Weight of Glory, Kindle, 60). 

God's Work

"The farmer plowing his field, the craftsman producing his goods, and the sovereign capably judging and governing are as much God's work as the clergyman in the pulpit or in the confessional. They have all had a divine call to render service to the world, and thus they will also be judged by God" (Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, 316).

The Great Shortfall Today

Dick Lucas:

In the long term I think being a preacher, missionary, or leading a Bible study group in many ways is easier. There is a certain spiritual glamour in doing it, and what we should be doing each day is easier to discern, more black and white, not so grey. It is often hard to get Christians to see that God is willing not just to use men and women in ministry, but in law, in medicine, in business, in the arts. This is the great shortfall today.

—Quoted in Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work (New York: Penguin, 2012), 115.