To Pursue a Job Well Done

In times when my job seems overwhelming, I find myself seeking to understand the meaning and purpose behind it all. For if I am working to please my bosses--a task immeasurably daunting when their standard of perfection repeatedly finds me a failure--then this is certainly a hopeless cause. Fortunately, I know that God is the only one I need to please. Which, especially recently, has led me to several questions--how do I define God's standard for excellence in my work? If He is the one for whom I go to work each day, how am I to know if He considers my job well done? Can any of my days be counted for His glory?

Tonight I found myself sinfully grumbling that I have lost my motivation. I am quick to blame my superiors for not inspiring me, wondering why they are not more gracious with my mistakes.

I am thankful that this season affords me the opportunity to sit up late on my balcony processing through these things. Though I rarely hear God's voice audibly, I am convinced of the Holy Spirit's deep uttering in my heart--a language that speaks powerfully in a way I cannot explain beyond a sense of peace in knowing--as I slowly realize I am expecting the things of God from mortal men. Certainly, my bosses will never give the kind of grace that I have found in Christ. And they have no inspiration to offer because their secular world-view runs circles around itself trying to find meaning in grades and colleges and pleasing parents. It is only when I view my job in light of the gospel that I can begin to understand how anything I do could have value.

The clearest example I could find of this is in the way I treat the 50-some-odd kids I interact with each day. Though many of them are the sorts of model students that only grace a parent's dreams, quite a few of my kids are difficult to love. It's easy to become impatient with them because they so often deliberately sin against me--acting disrespectfully, lying, and disobeying the directions I give.

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Romans 5:6-8

And this is the gospel made manifest. If I am to live as Jesus, it means loving even the most unlovable. After all, isn't that exactly what Christ has done for me? When I was acting in complete rebellion--refusing to listen to His advice, standing in opposition to the ultimate Teacher--God still looked at me in love.

"We love because he first loved us."

1 John 4:19

In the jumble of words my bosses have offered, there is one piece of advice that still rings clearly: in this job, you have to be quick to forget. The idea resurfaces as I marvel at God's ability and choice to literally forget my sin--to remove it as far as the East is from the West. If His mercies are new each morning, then I can look to Him as the model for how to view these kids--in light of the grace God has shown me, I should be all the more forgiving, loving, patient, and kind.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Chris Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

Ephesians 2:4-10

And so, walk on.