Think about where you spend the majority of your time. For most of us, that’s at work. If you’re a stay at home mom, you stay home. That’s the majority.
Then, the other places. Church, the gym, neighborhood, classes, meetings.
How do you make yourself more useful or effective there?
How do you spend your time on the things that matter? The things that you’re designed to do?
Many of us would like to get better at those things but often struggle with finding meaning in those places.
We wonder, what impact do I make in my life? Do people feel my presence or know I’m there when I’m working?
The reality is though; God cares deeply about our work. Our work for many of us is an outgrowth of our calling and purpose in our lives.
Our work is a reflection of our worship of God.
Some would even say that our work = worship.
You see this if someone is fair, lazy, a workaholic or balanced.
How we work matters to God because it reflects what we believe about God and what matters most in life.
Recently, I preached through Nehemiah 3, and when you open it, you see a list of names and the work they did to rebuild the city wall around Jerusalem.
Some of the work sounded glamorous. Some worked on the valley gate and the fountain gate. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? The fountain gate. I bet the valley gate was beautiful in the valley. I wonder if there was a stream?
But some worked on the dung gate. How do you think that assignment sounded?
The reality is, someone had to fix it. Otherwise, the wall would have a hole in it.
In a church, work, family, someone has to do it. Why? It needs to be done.
In our family, like yours, someone has to empty the dishwasher, take the trash out. Do my kids love that? No. Do they get paid for doing that? No, they do it because they’re part of our family.
In the same way, at your work or your church, that needs to be done, and you’re there.
Here’s a question I hear a lot: What do you do if you haven’t found your thing yet?
Much of the time it comes from a longing for our lives to matter and to have a purpose, sometimes it comes from jealousy and envy we have of others.
A lot of times, we don’t do anything because we’re waiting for our thing.
Here’s an important principle in life and leadership: Do something until you’re doing your thing.
Should we try to find the thing we’re passionate about doing? Yes. But often we learn that thing by doing other things, things that maybe we aren’t gifted at or passionate about doing.
We learn we love sales or teaching through trying things out. We find we are creative or task-oriented by doing things. The first time I stood in front of a group and spoke I was terrified, but I was exhilarated during and after the experience.
Here’s a principle that applies whether serving at church, reading your bible and praying, dating your spouse, time with your kids, building a business: Something is better than nothing.
Right now, you aren’t able to do all that you want to do, but you can do something.
Start there.
In those two principles, we often find why and how our work matters and how to make the impact that God calls us to.
