This morning I’ve been meditating on two words: “work,” which for me means writing, and “wait.”
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul detailed how followers of Christ can have holiness in our family lives (Col 3:18-21), holiness in our work lives (3:22 – 4:1), and holiness in our public lives (4:2-6).
When it comes to work, it is so easy to just get caught up in the daily grind. Isn’t it? Or to just put in our 8 to 5. To look like a chipmunk running on a treadmill in its cage, going fast but going nowhere.
But Colossians tells us that, whatever we do, whatever our kind of employment or volunteer position or place in the home, we are to do it “heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.”
[Tweet “Work heartily. Work from the soul. Do it for Jesus first. Give Him our finest and best effort.”]
Sometimes our work includes waiting. That’s tough, too. Sometimes it is far more difficult to sit still and wait than to fill life with busyness. Our culture today teaches us to be multitasking all the time. Waiting for divine guidance is not something we are taught and encouraged to do.
[Tweet “Waiting on God brings us to the end of our journey much faster than our feet.”]
Stop and ponder that truth for a moment. “Waiting on God brings us to the end of our journey much faster than our feet.” Sit still. Listen. Listen with your mind and your heart. Wait upon God and then work from your soul.
Near the end of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he includes a word to Archippus:
Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.
This advice is for all of us today as well. All believers in Christ have been called into a ministry. In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren writes: “God wants you to have both a ministry in the Body of Christ and a mission in the world. Your ministry is your service to believers, and your mission is your service to unbelievers.”
Writing isn’t just my work. It is my ministry. It is where God has called me to serve other believers. Perhaps, on occasion, that service spills over into my area of mission as well, but primarily this is where I am serving in the Body of Christ.
Where has God called you in ministry to the Body? Are you serving there as unto the Lord?
In the grip of His grace,
~robin
