Dear Friends,
“One day in Edinburgh, as the new minister was making his initial calls, he called at the cobbler’s shop. He talked loftily to the cobbler, as preachers are sometimes wont to do when certain fits of stupidity possess us! When the cobbler answered back, the preacher in astonishment said, ‘Man, you should not be cobbling shoes; you, a man with such thoughts and such a manner of expressing those thoughts! You should not be doing secular work!’
“’But,’ the cobbler replied, ‘I am not doing secular work. Do you see that pair of shoes there?’
“’I do.’
“’They belong to Widow Smith’s son. Her husband died in the summer. She nearly died too, but she was kept alive by her boy. Now her boy has a paper route to help the widow keep the roof overtheir heads. The bad weather is coming on, and God Almighty said to me, ‘Will you cobble WidowSmith’s boy’s shoes so that he won’t catch pneumonia and die this winter?’ And I said, ‘I will!’
“’Now you preach your sermons under God Almighty’s direction, as I trust you may, and I will cobble Widow Smith’s boy’s shoes under God Almighty’s direction. And in the day when the rewards are given out, He will say to you and to me the same sentence, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’”
(Walter Binwell Hinson, from ‘Traveling Toward Sunrise‘)
God always has had a place for a great variety of vocations. Gideon was a farmer, threshing wheat, when first we hear of him. Joseph, a carpenter, made things of wood including, quite possibly, a cradle for the Baby Jesus. Someone built the boat in which Jesus sailed on Galilee. Dorcas, a Christian lady in Joppa, sewed garments for the needy. Aquila and his wife, Priscilla, were tentmakers – an honorable and necessary trade. Even the noted Apostle Paul supported himself by making tents. From the little widowed mother who fed Elijah during the famine, to Joseph who used his organizational skills as Prime Minister under the Pharoah of Egypt, God had an appointed work for each.
“The gold for things of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and for all manner of work to be made by the hands of artificers. And what skilful craftsman then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord? (1 Chronicles 29:5)
“Be strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.” (2 Chronicles 15:7)
“There are strange ways of serving God; / you sweep a room or turn a sod / and suddenly, to your surprise, / you hear the whir of seraphim / and find you’re under God’s own eyes, / and building palaces for Him.” (Herman Hagedorn)
Standing at the kitchen sink one day, wondering about all the ‘secular’ things we seem compelled to do when there are so many ‘spiritual’ things we might rather be doing, the Word was strongly impressed upon me that “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and THE LIFE THAT I NOW LIVE, I live in faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” It is in the life that we now live, that Christ desires to manifest Himself. (Gal.2:20)
The men who built the cattle byre
That sheltered Mary and God’s son,
Could not have known their rustic skill
Would be renowned and glorious still
When centuries had run.
The manger framed by roughened hands
Where Christ was laid in shadowed gloom,
A country carpenter had made,
A product of his daily trade,
And never guessed for whom.
So we, who in our daily work
Can fashion great or humble things,
May trust, though how we cannot say,
That what we labor at each day
May serve the King of kings.
(Lawrence Ager from ‘The Guiding Light’)
Whatever the life that you are now living – homemaking, teaching, nursing, farming, office work, entertaining, or whatever else – know that, consecrated to God’s service, “if anyone’s work shall abide…(s)he shall receive a reward.” (1 Cor. 2:14)
“Let the beauty…and favor of the Lord our God be upon us; confirm and establish the work of our hands... (Ps. 90:17)
“And EVERYTHING, WHATEVER YOU DO in word or in work, DO ALL things in the name of the Lord Jesus…” (Col. 3:17)
“May God, the giver of HOPE,
fill you with continual JOY and PEACE
because you trust in Him—
so that you may have abundant HOPE
through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
(Romans 15:13 Weymouth)
In Agape, Eulene
