Dream Job
Theme of the Week: From Career to Calling
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: We can do [nothing] of lasting value by ourselves. Our only power and success come from God (2 Corinthians 3:5). Bonus Reading:2 Corinthians 2:14-17
Some of us go to work that excites us, demands our best, and rewards us with recognition. We are doing something significant that makes a difference and also makes money to take care of ourselves and our dependents. But after a few weeks or months, sometimes years, doing this work, the feelings and convictions that clustered around our becoming Christians become background to the center-stage drama of our work with its strenuous demands, energizing stimuli, and rich satisfactions.
Along the way the primacy of God and His work in our lives gives way ever so slightly to the primacy of our work in God's kingdom. The shift is barely perceptible, and it takes a long time for its significance to show up. But when it does, it turns out that we have not so much been worshiping God as enlisting him as a trusted and valuable assistant.
On the job, we are dealing with what we know, and what we are good at. Why not ask God to help us in our work? He invited us to, didn't He, when He said, "Ask … and you will receive"? Well, yes, He did. The problem is that reducing God to what I can use for my purposes, however noble and useful, becomes an act of idolatry.
—Eugene Peterson in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places
My Response: Am I working for God? Or asking God to work for me?
Thought to Apply: It's not what I do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through me. God doesn't want my success; He wants me.—Elizabeth Dole
Adapted from Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Eerdmans, 2005) by permission.
Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Lord, let me know clearly the work You are calling me to do in life. And grant me the courage, love, and lasting dedication to answer Your call. —Saint Meinrad
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