Who are You Working For?

My 8 year old was working on her spelling homework. It was a simple assignment; write each word three times.  Meanwhile I was getting ready for a church meeting. Honestly, I was mostly dreading a church meeting. There are lots of things I love doing in the church. Leading Bible study and speaking to women are two. But this meeting, ugh!

A very sweet older woman in the church asked me to serve on the committee to call people to remind them about our capital campaign. And while every fiber in my body screamed, "NO!" my voice meekly said, "Yes ma'am." *sigh!* I absolutely did not want to make those phone calls, and I absolutely did not want to go to that meeting.

I looked over my daughter's spelling, and noted her messy handwriting. "What's up with the messy handwriting?"  "I hate this assignment, so I got mad, and when I get mad my handwriting gets messy."  Immediately the PERFECT Bible verse sprang to mind. (Don't you love it when that happens?)

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord, not men. Col 3:23

But before I could quote it to my daughter, God whispered to me.
"No, it's for you."  What?
"The verse, it's for you." What do you mean?
"The meeting tonight, the one you've been mentally complaining about since you remembered it. The one you've been thinking up cute and clever ways to complain about via facebook updates. Do it for me. As if working for me."

I'd like to state for the record here, that my first reaction was NOT "God thought the FB update I was mentally preparing was cute and clever!" I just thought that now as I am typing this.  No, my first reaction was "Thank you, God, for the reality check."

It's so easy to look at someone else's life and find the "perfect verse" for them. It's harder to open our eyes to our own "sins," our own selfishness and grumpiness, and come up with a verse for ourselves.

I am thankful for that still small voice that whispered to my heart.  We all can make changes in our behavior, like I did that night. First, we must fill our heart with God's word by memorizing scripture. Then we must listen for the Holy Spirit's prompting to recall it at the appropriate time.

We are not called to volunteer for every job at church. We should serve in the areas where we are gifted. However, some jobs, (like spelling homework,) have to be done no matter how much we don't like them. Let's do our best, even on the jobs we hate. Our Teacher will appreciate it.

Kelly Combs is a Christian wife, mom, writer and speaker. You can learn about Kelly by visiting her website at www.kellycombs.com