“How many of you have ever had a job that you hated?
How many of you have ever had a dumb job?
How many of you have ever been working at something and it just felt like a complete waste of time?
Probably every single one of us, at some point or another would have to include ourselves in those categories. It just happens in life. And maybe that’s what’s happening to you right now. And it might be powerfully raising the question: “what’s the plan, what’s the point, what’s the purpose?”
And here’s the point I want to make: as Christians, we have got to pay extraordinarily close attention to this, we need to be very cognizant of our current circumstances, however mundane or unimportant those circumstances seem to be. The Bible teaches this lesson over and over again.
You find this in story after story in Scripture. Case in point:
David: David was a shepherd, that was about as low as you could go when it came to job desirability in ancient Judea. It meant long lonely hours that stretched into days and weeks alone, with sheep. Within his family business David wasn’t even included in meetings or discussions, he didn’t even count. He was there just to take care of the sheep.
To make matters worse, the job wasn’t just dumb, it was dangerous. Sheep attract predators, like bears and in that part of the world, lions. Now, if you’ve got this dumb job, and your employer completely takes advantage of you and you get paid nearly nothing…and then you’re faced with the choice of losing a lamb or laying down your life to face a lion…how are you going to play it? “Hey, we lost a lamb today.” But David wasn’t like that. The Bible tells us that he actually went after those predators and learned to fiercely and effectively defend the sheep. There he is, working in obscurity, risking everything. For what?
Well, it turns out, one day those skills he developed in a job he probably hated came in very handy when he eventually found himself in a very different situation, having to defeat the giant Goliath, which saved the day and won a war. The first part of his story, the insignificant part, and the second part of his story, the significant part, are not unrelated.
Pay close attention to current circumstances: they could be opportunities, even if you don’t like your situation, even if you don’t want those opportunities, even if you hate your job. God uses current opportunities to connect us to future opportunities. So you’ve got to be making an investment in what you’re doing right now.
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