Not in vain

Do you ever worry that you might be missing something?

Not your keys or your favourite TV show but something more important... something you're supposed to be doing.

I worry about that.

When I read my Bible and then look around at my life I start to wonder. Is it ok that I'm working at a secular job and not really doing much of consequence in relation to eternity?

Then I remember something that happened in my past...

Years ago I was in Tofino working as a salmon farm tech with a pretty unique crew. There was Mel the site manager. He was 7 feet tall with a wandering glass eye. Roger. He was an ex-Navy seal who had once been fired out of a submarine torpedo tube. "Larry" was on the lam from the law for practicing as a sex psychologist without any credentials. Nick, I don't remember anything strange about him except that he sometimes brought his wife out with him... and oh yeah she was a witch. Not to say that she was mean but rather that she could cast spells and such. Then Dave, Ren, Glenn and me.

After some time the company decided that they were going to shut down the farms in the area where we worked. As you can imagine morale and productivity plummetted. Mel quit and Roger and Nick got temporary promotions.

My newly promoted supervisors would stay in the house and watch TV and expected all of us to do the same. Once when I was going out to feed the salmon Nick asked me "Where are you going? Its raining out there."

It was weird, I felt guilty for not working hard and I felt guilty for even working at all.

Then one day out of the blue a strange boat showed up. I was feeding when the boat pulled up to the site and Nick and the rest of the guys came scurrying out of the house. Turns out it was a senior manager with the company. He came out to talk to me and said he had been travelling around and I was the only one that he had found feeding fish.

Long story short when they shut all the sites down I was one of the few guys who kept my job and got a transfer to another site.

I like to think about that experience because it might be analogous to how I feel now. I feel like I'm not doing much I'm no Billy Graham, I'm not smuggling Bibles into North Korea or helping to build a new church but I am teaching my kids and the few kids at Sunday school Biblical truths.

Peter became a disciple of Jesus in John 1:42 but still worked as a fisherman until Luke 5:8 and then when asked, he left everything including his greatest success.

Maybe its not so important what I do but that I'm willing to do whatever I'm asked.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. 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

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. - Hebrews 10:35-36