Does What You Do Make a Difference?
Several years ago my telephone rang. And as soon as I greeted the caller, the voice on the other end said, “I have to tell you about the call I just received.” Quite interested, I listened as my good friend David began to relate the conversation.
“You may not remember me, but my name is Tim. We attended the same high school and played on the football team together. I was not a Christian then, but I watched your life, saw you bring your Bible to school, and noticed you were not ashamed to take a stand for Jesus. Even though we did not know one another very well then, God used your life to motivate me to trust Jesus Christ as my Savior. I tracked down your parents and they gave me your phone number. I simply had to call and thank you for being a faithful Christian and leading me to Christ. I just finished serving 20 years in the Air Force and established Bible studies on every base where I was stationed. I have had the privilege to lead many airmen to Christ, and some of them are now colonels and generals in the Air Force and faithfully serving the Lord. It is all because of you.”
My friend David was crying tears of joy as he then told me, “I just had to call and thank you for the five years that you discipled me for Jesus, because I owe my testimony to you.” Needless to say, I was stunned. I had to think hard to remember some of the things my friend recounted that we had done together that impacted him. What I thought was faithfully carrying out mundane and routine tasks as a youth pastor, God was using for His glory in the future.
What are you doing that you think is not very important? Are you faithfully following God’s direction, but wondering what eternal difference it could ever make? Do those who question your faithfulness cause you to doubt your potential effectiveness? You are not simply a nobody wasting your energy. You are somebody in Jesus Christ fulfilling a vital role.
What matters to God is not what you do for a living or how important others think you are, but how you do what you do. Colossians 3:22-25 gives instructions as to how Christians are to work. The Lord wants you to do your best while working from your heart. That means you must constantly check your attitude. You make a choice every day regarding the attitude with which you approach life, and that attitude will often determine whether you are making a positive impact for Jesus Christ or a negative one. Which one do you suppose pleases God?
Our perspective about our work is also important. My friend Robert McFarland (author of Dear Boss: What Your Employees Wish You Knew) wrote, “It doesn’t matter so much what you do. What does matter is whether you think your work matters. God wants you to see things from His perspective. He doesn’t want you to focus only on you. He wants you to see that He is working through many people in a way that He is orchestrating.”
What you do does make a difference, one way or the other. What if you don’t vote in the upcoming election and a person who is sympathetic to Sharia Law and against the U.S. Constitution is elected as Attorney General? Or someone who supports abortion and opposes parental rights is elected to the U.S. Senate, or House of Representatives, or Governor, or …….? Actions have consequences, and so do inactions. Do diligent research on candidates, then vote intelligently.