One of my favorite places to be is near an ocean. The roar of the waves and how they crash against the sand remind me of the enormity of God. His majesty and greatness are on display in the beauty of the sun reflecting against the water. And at the same time, I see His detail and His care in each unique grain of sand. The God who can calm seas and can also cause them to rise is the same God who can settle the storms in my life and defeat any enemy advancing my way.
As much as I love being by the ocean, there is another place where I often experience the goodness and greatness of our God. It is a much different place; there is no breeze messing up my hair and often the only sound I hear is of students clicking away on their laptop keyboards. At the front of a college classroom may seem like an odd place to worship God, and yet, as a college professor, this is regularly what I do. My work, my vocation, is one of the ways I honor and give glory to Him. My work, and doing it for His glory, is an act of worship.
While it may be easy to see how teaching a college class at a Christian school may be worshipful, I had a similar mindset when my work involved creating marketing plans and managing team dynamics. As a follower of Christ, what I set my hands (or mind) to should be done as to the Lord (Col. 3:23). This of course includes my service to my church and to my family, but it also includes the manner in which I earn a paycheck. The specific occupation is not what makes labor worshipful (although there are certainly some forms of work that are contrary to God’s commands, and therefore can never rightly be done as an expression of worship.) The job title is not what is of primary importance; what matters most is that the work I do honors God because, in some way, it reflects His character, and that as I do the tasks I have been given, I too am faithfully demonstrating Who He is. This is true whether a child of God works in or outside the home, whether they are in a “helping” profession, and regardless of their educational level or professional status. Our work should be an act of worship because all our lives should faithfully display the reality of Who God is.
Too often, I hear of Christians who separate their “work” and their “ministry” as if these were two different things, as if their service at church on Sunday has no bearing on the forty-hours (or more!) they spend at the office each week. While it is certainly true that every Christian should serve at their local church, they should not think that this is the only arena where they are called to serve God. All our life should be an act of worship, including that part of our life which we call our “work.”
