Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, . . . It is the
Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians
Reflecting on this most empowering statement of Scripture, Fulton Sheen once told this story:
Down in the gutter of a city street was a drop of water, soiled, dirty and stagnant. Way up in the heavens, a gentle sunbeam saw it; leaped from out of the azure sky, down to the drop, kissed it, thrilled it through and through with new strange life and hopes, lifted it up higher and higher and higher beyond the clouds, and one day left it as a flake of immaculate snow on a mountaintop.
Having been reared and schooled in this age of science, and understanding the laws of evaporation and condensation, we readily comprehend the principles behind this ennobling of the stagnant water drop. Though we might not quickly think of such an idea, we are able to easily recognize its believability.
Not so quickly, however, do we accept the ennobling of our own lives. Somehow, it seems “too good to be true.” And of course, we’ve learned the hard way that those things that seem “too good to be true” usually are. Besides, the daily grind of our life is much too humdrum to ever be thought of in sacred terms.
How could we ever think of our efforts “doing housework” or “pumping gas” or “driving a truck” or “programming a computer” or even “playing baseball” as serving the Lord? After all, isn’t such a sacred designation reserved for those who “enter into the ministry” or “do mission work”?
Yet, that is precisely the message of Colossians 3:22-24. Whatever one does vocationally—even the menial tasks assigned to slaves—can be offered to the Lord as service to him; indeed, as worship of him.
Even as the stagnant drop of water is lifted high above its polluted surroundings, so our painfully routine and secular duties are raised high above their vulgar surroundings to the very throne room of God.
It is not necessary for you to become a preacher for you to serve the Lord “full-time.” You simply must go about your present job with the commitment to please and glorify him.