Take Your Faith to Work Today

Go ahead. Take your faith to work today. Let go of the idea that people who are seriously called by God become ordained clergy-type people or go into the foreign mission field, and everyone else is off the evangelism hook.  Not only is this misguided, it’s not even Biblical.

*Noah was a shipbuilder, a zookeeper and a cruise director

Abraham was in real estate development

Joseph was a pioneer in food distribution systems

Esther was a pageant queen who became an actual queen

Daniel went to the King’s college and essentially became president of Iraq* 

None of these people were pastors, priests or even ordained laypeople. In fact, you have to look long and hard before you can find religious professionals in the Bible who come off looking like Godly people at all. I suppose Eli and Samuel in the Old Testament pass the test, but all of the priests and Pharisees in the New Testament tend to be part of the problem instead of the solution—and one could make a very persuasive argument that the same thing is true today.

If you had a chance to listen to the It’s Been a Minute podcast with Niecy Nash featured on our Feel Good Friday post a couple weeks back, you know she talks about the difference between her “job” and her “assignment.” Her job is showing up on set, doing the work she was hired to do, but her assignment is to find out how she can serve those around her through her job.

We are all called by God into mission and ministry, whether we are scientists or school teachers, doctors or ditch diggers, students or stay-at-home parents. We are all out in the mission field. We all have assignments.

No Boundaries

We have set up false boundaries between the sacred and the secular in our world, but all of it makes up God’s creation.  We don’t have to let go of the places we consider holy to consider that every place and space we occupy has the potential for holiness. The water cooler is not a baptismal font, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t sacred space.  The beauty shop is not a sanctuary, but that doesn’t hearts aren’t healed there.

What if today you are not an accountant or a contractor or a programmer or a cook or a salesclerk in an office or a cubicle or a site or a store, but a missionary occupying  sacred space?  What if you go into whoever it is you go with that mindset. That kind of changes things, doesn’t it?

Placed with Purpose 

What if you have been placed in your work space ON purpose and WITH a purpose? What if your work is far more about the people around you than it is about, well…you?

The Psalmist tells us that we are wonderfully formed. That God knows us inside and out. The Apostle Paul asserts to those learned Greeks that God has determined our appointed times in history. What if the God who knows you better than you know yourself and who has placed you in this time in history has also placed you in your workplace for a purpose that is beyond you.  Perhaps work isn’t just about you climbing a ladder or earning a paycheck or moving on up. Perhaps you have a purpose there that goes beyond your job description.

Go Forth! 

Today, go forth as missionaries to sacred and holy places where God’s people gather.

Extend to others the mercy and grace God has offered to you.

Pray for those you encounter.

Make sure that people know you are a Christian not because of a fish decal on your car or a cross around your neck but (as the song says) by your love.

Joyfully claim your calling as ministers in the sacred spaces you occupy today and every day.

*Adapted from the Right Now series Work as Worship book.

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