When you think of someone working from home for their full-time job, you probably think of a person lounging in their pj’s and slippers, 2½ days into their no-shower streak. Perhaps they’re slowly drinking that steaming mug of coffee as they casually peruse their emails. They check out a quick half-hour of the news while scanning what’s on their to-do lists. No real accountability. No real focus. Just an awesome opportunity to be able to be at home while everyone else is head-long into their hour commute.
Well, the pj’s and slippers describe me fairly accurately. To complement by hobby job at the bakery, I work full time for a hospital in Wyoming. I’ve worked for them for six years, and I love it. But three years ago, I made the move to California and I thought I was going to have to find a new job. Except I didn’t have to. My boss opted to send me with my work equipment and here I am, three years later, in my pj’s and slippers (and yes, I’m drinking that coffee as well) working from home.
We were recently told we have a new time-tracking system being installed in our computers so that the hospital can monitor what we’re doing with our time. It’s truthfully a genius idea to make sure people aren’t just watching YouTube all day instead of working, but it really got me thinking about how much work I actively do. And even more important, what if God tracked our work this way?
Bear with me a moment. I know God knows and sees everything we do, just like I know that the hospital sees my final work done every day. But what if we KNEW God had a tracking system that monitored how faithful we were to sharing the gospel with friends, co-workers, strangers, neighbors? What if He was checking to see if we served the orphans, the widows or the less fortunate? Or how about our attitudes—what if the checker determined how many times we were short-tempered or didn’t give grace? How well would we do? Would He be seeing strong effort from us, or would He see us lounging around on break all day?
Please hear me when I say that I KNOW that the bible teaches that works do not save you. But I believe that when we begin a relationship with Jesus, our faithfulness and devotion DO push us towards honoring God’s commands, which include loving our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31) and taking care of others (James 1:27, Psalm 82:3). He teaches to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15).
I know when I look at it like that, I fall short far more than I meet the expectation. I know that I need to be doing more to be told, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” I shouldn’t be relying on a time tracker to make sure I’m doing the job. I need to be doing it and doing it to the best of my ability every day. God deserves that from us for what He did for us. Today, I choose to raise the bar!
~Erin
Iron Porch 