The Paperboy

Growing Daily

The Paperboy

Like many kids in the 1970s, my first job was delivering newspapers.  I’d load up my rickety old Schwinn after school, a bag of papers slung over the handlebars.  In winter, I’d bundle up like a kid from A Christmas Story and trudge through the frozen neighborhood.

Hollywood often portrays paperboys as carefree kids tossing papers willy-nilly from their bikes, but the job carried real responsibility.  Rain or shine.  No sick days, no vacations.  All that effort earned less than a dollar a day.  But without realizing it, I was learning the satisfaction of hard work and finishing a job well.

Today, work is often treated as something to avoid — something we endure until the weekend.  But Scripture tells a different story.  

The opening chapter of the Bible shows God at work.  And when He finished, He “rested from all His work” (Genesis 2:2).  Work wasn’t a necessary evil.  It was the joy of producing something “very good.”

We are made in that image.  Adam was placed in the garden not for recreation, but to care for it (Genesis 2:15).  We’re not here merely to admire God’s handiwork, but to participate in it.  Our work — however ordinary — reflects something of who He is.

That paper route taught me more than I knew.  Every paper on every porch was a small act of faithfulness.  So is the work that God has placed before you today.


- Ron Reid