Everyone has a job; what's yours?
I challenge you to pause and answer that question. What is your job?
I don't merely mean the job that pays your salary or what you answer when someone asks, "what have you been up to?". Not the place you grudgingly drive to every weekday because you have to. Because we have those tasks we do, but they aren't who we are.
I wonder what is your God-given job? What is the passion or dream or simple work He put into your hands and whispers, "go for it"?
What were you created to do that God is calling you to be faithful in?
That's your job.
Last month, I found myself wrapping up one of my Farm Tales drafts and setting it aside as my illustrator continued her work, and I felt my arms wide open as I whispered, "God, what's next? What do you want me to jump into?"
He didn't answer immediately. But the next day, a dear friend sat chatting with me, and she asked about my writing projects, saying, "So what does your writing look like? Do you write every day?"
I laughed as I told her I might not even write every week, explaining it away with excuses about how busy I was with siblings, my paid job, and the other tasks on my schedule.
But she smiled. "If this is a job God gave you, shouldn't it be a priority?"
It hit me.
I'd say my job is to go to work at the music store, serve customers, keep things clean and organized, and go home. Or I might say my job is being a big sister and being faithful at home.
And those are my jobs. I work at them with all my heart, seek to do them well every single week.
But if God gave me a specific job, shouldn't that be just as important as driving to work every work day?
Shouldn't I dive in headfirst, be passionate, devote myself to finishing this calling He set before me?
So I did. July was a lovely month of pursuing the calling God set before me, and it was adorned with answered prayers and sweet moments with God as we wrote and edited and completed the work He set before me. I realized again why I love being a writer. I joy-ed through my work.
And as I did so, He whispered the reason why we do every job He sets before us:
...continually set your hearts, before all else, on His Kingdom and the salvation that comes from Him...
It's not just doing the thing we're good at. It's the fact that Jesus is going to return with His Kingdom, establish a New Earth, and we get to live with Him forever! It's the craziness that He offers forgiveness to every heart who humbles themselves before Him.
My job as a writer is to set my own heart on His Kingdom and create words that, I pray, draw others to His salvation.
May that be the reason I do every single job. May I write faithfully, heart set on His Kingdom. As I serve customers and love siblings and mop the kitchen and chat with friends, may that be the ultimate purpose behind it all:
seek first the Kingdom.
If the job is incredibly hard or if it's simply mundane.
Friend, may you be found faithful in your roles. If you run a household and wash laundry and wipe snotty noses, may it be a joyful sacrifice where you meet Jesus in the chaos. If you're a creator who uses your fingers to write stories, carve wood, paint masterpieces, send snail mail, lift others up with music, may you do it for and with our Savior. If you drive to work or do school, may it be with all your heart as for the Lord.
I challenge you to pause, sit with Jesus, and seek His heart. He is the best friend you could ever have, and He wants to live life with you. Ask Him what His jobs for you are, but more, ask Him how you can seek first His Kingdom.
Not just work harder. Not be a better person.
It's a relationship with a God who covers you with His love, who wants to live life with you, who wants to use you to impact this world!
(it's pretty exciting!)
Press on sister. Run the race brother. May we be found faithful when He returns with His Kingdom. ♥
Whatever work you do, it is from the heart that you are to do it, as though you were serving the Lord and not mere men, knowing that it is the Lord from whom you will receive the inheritance as your reward. It is the Lord, the Messiah, to whom you are truly rendering your service.
- Colossians 3:23-24
~♥~
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