I started a big kid job this week, a real 8 to 5 Monday through Friday job WITH the mindset of having to pay bills and rent. For everyone who knows me, I'm sure they are reading this with their jaws dropped. I'm writing this with my jaw dropped! I work as an aid in the financial department of a sheet metal company, pretty much the most random job that I could find. My job consists of filing papers right, checking that the papers are filed right, and occasionally entering data into the system. It felt like a lot of what I was doing was pointless and meaningless and I really had a hard time imagining myself working in this place for three months. I was getting restless and it was only day three, but I had a lot of time to think. And as I was rifling through hundreds of papers mindlessly checking for purchase order numbers and invoices I began to think about the way everything worked in that office. You see, I put together the packets that the next woman looks through to check for right pricing so that she can then put into the computer and make a check for the company. I file the invoices so that when that check is made, we can pull out the right ones staple it together real quick and send them off to get signed so that everyone gets their money and the company keeps going. All of a sudden my work and the quality of it became so much more important and my sense of purpose became a whole heck of a lot stronger in my job.
Well, so often we get stuck in the details of what our hands are directly involved in, in only what we can see. It translates into everything, including and especially our relationship with God and the identity we derive from that. We get stuck in the small story and life becomes mundane, stressful, annoying, purposeless, and draining. We worry if we are making an impact, we get bored, and we feel like something is missing. You see, we actually play a role in something SO much bigger then us and we fight for a cause that is way outside of just what we do in our lives. Stepping back and asking "what am I doing this for?", shifts the focus from living life right and trying to be happy (essentially just getting by emotionally) to building a relationship with our God and loving others like He does. It no longer is just about following rules or about punching our hours in the time clock when we wake up and punching them out when we go to sleep; it becomes about seeking Truth and falling in love with a Creator who knows the full complex Story that we play a part in. And our lives become full of purpose, full of importance, full of identity, full of foundation and strength in something that is not just us. The details, they trap us into looking at ourselves and only our story, but the big Story gives us the eyes to see others in the way God does and to see the calling that we get to respond to. The story we pursue changes in the push of the shift button to Story and that changes everything.
It's not just about filing paperwork, getting paid, living right, becoming happy, but about a Story that started in the beginning of time and tells us that we have a Truth so powerful we can hang all of our hope, purpose, and identity on. So, I'm going to wake up tomorrow at 6am to get to work, and I'm going to file papers, punch in numbers, and laugh with my coworkers knowing that I am playing a role in helping that company run however small it may be. And I'm going to wake up tomorrow knowing that I am not just another girl in this world going through another day fighting for happiness, but that I am Daughter of God's fighting for a Truth that does not depend on me to be true. And I get to play a role in furthering the Kingdom of God. And so do you.
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