God's Work in Yours

Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

I wasn’t at my best. I was tired and ready to get home. With only a couple of hours left in my 3:00 – 11:00 p.m. shift I received a call asking for a chaplain to come to the family waiting area near the surgical unit.

As a pastor, I have a fairly decent grasp on the theological significance of work. I once preached a Labor Day weekend sermon titled “You Look like You Could Use a Vocation.” I liked that one. Now, with a renewed focus on missional theology, I’m learning all about partnering with God and participating in what God is doing in the world around me. Good stuff.

But here’s the truth: when that call came to go the family waiting room on the surgical floor I didn’t want to partner with anybody in anything. That’s probably not something a pastor ought to say out loud – but there are days when being a chaplain isn’t too different from being a radiology technician. Sometimes you’re glad to be headed home.

But it wasn’t time for that. Someone up on the surgical floor needed a chaplain, and on that night that happened to be me. So I went. There I found a man by himself, visibly anxious. Introductions were made. We sat down and he told me the story of how his wife and been brought to Dallas from an East Texas hospital for emergency surgery on her heart. I listened and thought to myself that this situation didn’t sound good. We were going to be there a while.

This waiting room was a windowless box. We sat in the quiet; I asked occasional questions about his wife, learned more about her illness. Every few minutes he’d ask me to pray . . . again. Every few minutes he’d ask me to walk to the nurses’ desk and check on the progress of the surgery. Of course I’d do so even though I knew that they probably didn’t have updates for us every fifteen minutes.

The remaining hours of my shift crept by. I watched the clock, hate to say. Finally the midnight chaplain arrived. Introductions were made again. I made my way to the parking lot for my 40 minute drive back to Fort Worth.

When I returned to the hospital for my next shift, I noted on the patient list that the woman who had been in surgery that night was still a patient. She had made it. This time, with a little more genuine caring in my heart, I went to check on her.

I’ll never forget the response of her husband when I entered her room. Of course she had no clue who I was. But her husband embraced me and wept – all the emotion and tension of those hours coming back to him when he remembered our hours of sitting. “He sat with me when you were in surgery,” he explained to his wife.

I guess I’ve never forgotten that for this reason: I felt embarrassed by the warm reception he gave me when I had been so perfunctory in my work. I knew I hadn’t been a very good chaplain that night. But he didn’t seem to know that. He was thankful. The hours of quiet and occasional conversation had meant something to him.

One of the things we’ll say often during “my95” is that God can use you in your work to impact another life. This has little to do with how you feel on any given day, and that includes this day. You may be tired, you may be distracted, you may be bored, you may be energized. God takes what you offer every day and does something with it beyond your awareness.

God is at work in your work – not because your work is always excellent, but because God is always faithful.

Prayer:
Use me today as you see fit, O Lord. I offer my work to you and ask you to use it to impact someone else according to your will for them. I thank you for the gift of being involved in what you are doing in the lives of others. Strengthen me to do my best work, trusting in the faithfulness of your work in all things. Amen.