Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
give success to the work of our hands.
O give success to the work of our hands.
—The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, Psalm 90:17
How often do we move through our days asking (or begging) God to help us with our various endeavors? Nothing is off limits, from the ridiculous to the sublime, and that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a gift to feel comfortable enough to turn to our God daily for assistance with things great and small.
Yet today’s “Blessing of Labor,” taken from Psalm 90, challenges us to focus in on the places where God’s “favor” is most critical, the “work of our hands,” even if we don’t actually use our hands in our work. This is the work best described as our vocation, those places where the things we do intersect with the way God calls us to show up in the world. Perhaps it is our role as a parent or spouse, a caregiver to an aging loved one, the owner of a business, a teacher or nurse, or someone who actually does work with their hands in ways that provide the rest of us with food, clothing, heat, housing, and more.
As we celebrate Labor Day, and mark the unofficial changing of seasons from summer fun to fall routines, let us not only ask God to give success to our work but to help us discern if the work we are doing is what we are called to pursue. Can we be open to new ways the Lord might be calling us forward, or perhaps renew our commitment to long-held jobs that have grown stale and burdensome? Give us success, Lord, yes, but also give us hearts eager to fulfill our mission on earth and to live out the vocation for which we have been created.
[CREDIT] Mary DeTurris Poust, from the September 2026 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2026). Used with permission.
Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash
