Key Bible Verses: Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do … the Master you are serving is Christ (Colossians 3:23, 24). Bonus Reading: Exodus 31:1-5; 35:30-35

From childhood we helped our father in a small store, part of Long Island's Great South Bay Fish Market. One Thursday afternoon Dad was selling a large carp to a prosperous woman.

"Is it fresh?" she asked. It bristled with freshness, had just come in; but the game was part of the sale. They'd gone over it anatomically together: the eyes were bright, the gills were in good color, the flesh was firm, the belly was even spare and solid, the tail showed not much waste, the price was right. Finally Dad held up the fish behind the counter, "Beautiful, beautiful! Shall I clean it up?"

She grudgingly assented, ruefully admiring the way the bargain had been struck. "My," she said, "you certainly didn't miss your calling."

Unwittingly, she spoke the truth. My father was in full-time service for the Lord, prophet, priest, and king in the fish business. When I watch my dad's big beefy hands with broad stubby fingers—each twice the thickness of mine—delicately split the back of a mackerel … When I see them consecratedly cutting up fish before the face of the Lord, I know God's grace can come down to a man's hand and the flash of a scabby fish knife.

My Response: I can honor God through my work by …

Thought to Apply: Every man's work is a portrait of himself.
—Source Unknown