Sawdust
“The only Christian work is good work well done.”
Notice what isn’t said. It’s not said the only Christian work is preaching, or ministry, or anything with a stage. It is good work, well done. Most of us resist that idea, but it means God cares how the table is built. When Nazareth’s neighbours tried to dismiss Jesus, they asked, “Isn’t this the carpenter?” It was meant as an insult. It was also a biography. The Son of God spent most of His adult life measuring, cutting, and sanding. A carpenter then made yokes, doors, roofs, and plows, heavy and practical work for people who never knew whose hands they were paying.
Sit with that. The same hands that later healed the blind first learned to fit a joint so it wouldn’t fail. Nobody applauds a well-made door. It just works for years, and people walk through it without a thought. That’s most of our work took, the spreadsheet no one reads, the shift, the meal, the diaper, the code that quietly holds. We’re tempted to treat it as a waiting room for something more meaningful. Nazareth’s point is that the waiting room can be a sanctuary. Good work, done honestly for people who may never thank you, is already worship.
But it is not that easy to achieve. When each time a task you did goes unnoticed, it is easy to slam that laptop hard, it is not that hard to fling the papers around and quit, because no matter how you look at it, you just don’t see the point. Where am I going? What am I doing? These questions become the background score of your life when you are slaving in a dead place or a job that isn’t leading anywhere. But the quiet moments of defeat that you feel, there is a creator watching over you, those small moments of defeat isn’t the sign of a guardian who walks away, in fact it is sign that He is closer than ever before.
In every place we are, we are not placed there by accident. Every job you do isn’t a cosmic shuffle, it is deliberately designed by a creator who has seen you there. When he has seen you there, he has seen what you will go through, he has full knowledge of the pressure point that can break you and he isn’t just someone who waits and watches as you crumble but he is that divine protector who gives you the grace to keep going even when it feels like your whole world is crumbling down.
Not every task is glamorous, but every task is seen. Do it like a carpenter whose Father is checking the joints.