DAY 33
PART OF THE GREAT PLAN
at THE END OF THE DAY, NEAR THE END OF A LIFE, WHAT DOES A PERSON’S WORK ADD UP TO? what DOES IT ALL MEAN? the WRITER OF ecclesiastes POSED THE SAME QUESTION. the ANSWER IS THAT god DOESN’T ALWAYS SHOW US THE ANSWER IN THIS LIFE. he ASKS US TO FIND SATISFACTION IN OUR WORK BECAUSE WE ARE CONFIDENT THAT IT IS god’s GIFT.
ECCLESIASTES 3:9-15
What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.
Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.
Character Check What could I do this week to let God transform some aspect of my job?
In Business TermsContentment in your work comes from standing constantly and consciously in the presence of God so that he can transform any task into something meaningful.
I read of a checker at a Safeway supermarket in Oakland, California, some years back. Her job wasn’t ideal, but she had figured out ways to transform that job. She’d tap out a rhythm you could almost tap-dance to as she rang up items on the cash register. She’d offer recipes to customers. She had a jar of cookies at her side to hand out to kids. And to beat the monotony of bagging the groceries, she played a game with herself, figuring out the cleverest way to fit the most items into the bag. She made packing bags an art.
People often see vocational contentment as a happy match between what you have to do and what you enjoy doing. But there’s no such permanent match. When you define contentment as an ideal match, which I did for years, you’re subject to the fact that it’s like passion: it often doesn’t last long.
But when you define contentment as the ability to let God transform your job, then you’ll find contentment.
—Richard Nelson Bolles
Something to Think About There are three kinds of people: those who have sought God and found him, and these are reasonable and happy; those who seek God and have not yet found him, and these are reasonable and unhappy; and those who neither seek God nor find him, and these are unreasonable and unhappy. – Blaise Pascal
