Hidden Work

Today I read a story in a devotional about a team of young adults working on a project at a deaf school. This school was in a very impoverished country. The team's project one day was to paint the back of a building. The only people who would ever see the back of the building were the person who cut the grass, and anyone who would ever have to work on the septic pit behind the building. It would have been tempting for these young adults to just slop some paint on the wall and move on to some other project that was more visible. Yet one of the girls said, "Nobody will ever come back here to see this, but God will see it. So let's make it look nice."

A lot of what we do in our lives will never be seen by crowds--never receive great acclaim. Many of us have jobs that seem insignificant or tedious...very "behind the scenes" type stuff. It's tempting to think that we can just "get by" because what we do doesn't really matter, in the big scheme of things. As the author of the devotional noted, "But if that is what God has called us to do, we need to work with all our heart." Some would say, "God hasn't really called me to scrub this toilet." Or, "I'm only doing this temporarily, until I can do what God has actually called me to do." And that is really missing the point! God has called all of us to do whatever we do with all our might, as unto Him. Our aim in life is to always please God, whether anyone else can see what we're doing or not.

Whether our work is public or private...whether it is on the street or behind a building..."the important thing is that God likes what He sees."

Quotes taken from Our Daily Bread, July 16. Author: David Branon