Significance

It has been a long week at work.  The new system has been giving us (mostly me) a lot of trouble this week.  We shipped over 1800 packages last Tuesday with no major issues.  Beginners luck.  With our official "go-live" date occurring this Monday (we went live early, and a bit unexpectedly, for one client last week), things have been a struggle since, to say the least.  I didn't get home until nearly 8pm on Wednesday night and the issues still were not resolved!  Then Thursday morning God brought me to Hebrews 10:26-39 in my devotions (or time of personal worship as my Pastor prefers to call it).  I just couldn't stop the tears.  How often do I count "the blood of the covenant by which he (I) was sanctified a common thing"?  Probably every day.  I rarely give it any thought.  Then verse 34 reminded me of the prayer request from Advancing Native Missions a couple weeks ago that our pastor brought to us.  There were Syrian refugees in Turkey who were going back into Syria to baptize some new believers.  They had asked for prayer that if they were captured that they would die quickly, and that if they were tortured that they wouldn't deny Christ.  I just didn't even know how I was to respond to it all.  The first notation from my sermon notes this past Sunday was "Lord, am I lethargic in my walk with you?"  The world is a mess and I lost sleep Wednesday night because our shipping system isn't operating properly!!  What am I doing!?  But, I had to remember the rest of the sermon; a sermon about a life of significance.  In doing my job well and working hard I am "being merciful to God's reputation"- my work does matter, it just may not look as grand as the tasks to which God has called others.

"Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is. Drudgery is work that is very far removed from anything to do with the ideal – the utterly mean,* grubby things; and when we come in contact with them we know instantly whether or not we are spiritually real. Read John 13; we see there the Incarnate God doing the most desperate piece of drudgery, washing fishermen’s feet, and He says – “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” It requires the inspiration of God to go through drudgery with the light of God upon it. Some people do a certain thing and the way in which they do it hallows that thing for ever afterwards. It may be the most commonplace thing, but after we have seen them do it, it becomes different. When the Lord does a thing through us, He always transfigures it." -- Oswald Chambers

*mean: as used here, something or someone ordinary, common, low, or ignoble, rather than cruel or spiteful."

significance (noun)

1.  importance; consequence
2.  meaning; import

3.  the quality of being significant or having a meaning