When Marlin and his brother were boys, they lived for the dirt pile… the “strip mine” in their mother’s garden.
Armed with toy Caterpillar dozers and loaders, they dug huge holes and built towering piles of dirt. To them, those small mounds were massive and larger than life.
Their dad would sometimes take them to real strip mines where they got to ride in ginormous equipment. It was genuinely larger than life.
Marlin reflects on how our concept of work is changing so dramatically today. Many call work a bummer, something you just do to get by.
With the wave of artificial intelligence and rapid change, the future feels uncertain.
But Marlin knows this: the people who understand why God put them here, and what work they were built to do, find the most purpose and joy in their labor.
God doesn’t look at us and say, “You have to go to work.”
He says, “You get to go to work.”
These short, heartfelt Minutes with Marlin deliver quick moments of wisdom, faith, humility, and encouragement… perfect for busy homestead days when we need a gentle reminder of what really matters.
Learn more about Plain Values at https://plainvalues.com
Transcripts
Marlin Miller:
When we were boys, my brother and I lived for the dirt pile, the strip mine as we called it. Our mom gave us a little corner of the garden and we took our caterpillar, our komatsu dozers and loaders, these little toys and we took them out there and we worked our back ends off and we would dig huge holes and we would build huge towering piles of dirt, just like dad was building in the real strip mines. And I’m sure they were probably not even a foot high, but to us they were massive and they were larger than life. It was a blast. Dad would take us to these mines at times and we would get to ride in this ginormous, huge equipment. And it was genuinely larger than life. Today, our concept of work is changing so dramatically. People call work a bummer. They do what they have to do to get by.
And honestly, I have no idea what’s coming with this wave of change with artificial intelligence and all the things that that’s bringing our way. I don’t know how that’s going to play out. I just know this. It is generally the people that understand why they’re here, why God built them and in what way that get the most purpose and the most joy out of the work that they get to do. And often they are exactly where they believe that God built them to be and to do the work that he built them to do. That’s what I want to be when I grow up is I want to understand why he put me here and what I am here to do. I hope we can all understand on a deeper level that God doesn’t look at us and say, “You guys have to go to work.” He looks at us and he says, “You get to go to work.” And I think Sunday and the Sabbath, the concept of the Sabbath is not to say you have to stop working.
It’s to say you have to rest because he would want us, if we understood work correctly, we would want to work all the time. And I think God put the Sabbath in place to say, “You guys need to rest also. You need to take a break because if we understood it correctly, we would want to work all the time.” Probably being called a workaholic there. I’m not sure. But I think there’s balance. I think it’s a real blessing. May you find joy in the dirt piles of life. I
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