Be Good at What You Do

Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it;

Unless the LORD guards the city the watchman stays awake in vain.

Psalm 127:1

If He should set His heart on it, if He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, 

All flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.

Job 34:14-15

I woke this morning at 04:11 with Psalm 127:1 on my conscience - forefront in my conscious mind and almost tangibly pressing into my being.  As I often do when I awake in that manner I ask the Lord what it's about.  This morning the answer was: "In your joy you run the risk of pridefully making this about you.  When anything is about you, it comes laden with anxiety and ultimately failure... with Me there is peace and genuine joy that is everlasting, a foundation that can't be shaken.  If this thing is to succeed it must be with the constant mindfulness that I have brought it about not only for your blessing, but the blessing of others."  With that it became a clear revelation that it wasn't just me that He was talking about.  As I worked through all that Holy Spirit revealed to me regarding the blessing that is my new employment position and the key individuals who have come together to make this mergered company work, He revealed as well that timeless caution that all of us run this risk on a daily basis.  Making it about you.

To be certain all of us have a set of skills, giftings if you will.  You are just good at something and you know it, others know it - and to be fair there is a righteous pride that should reside with that knowledge, because it glorifies God when we do well at what we do.  Some of us get to build a professional life around that, if we were wise enough to always make it possible we would all do so and the world would be changed as we lived out of the fullness of who God created us to be.  In my case I'm the Gas Man.  I run gas line and plumbing - a pipe fitter.  The whole thing is like the combination of a Sudoku and Tetris puzzle to me and I thrive under the challenges involved.  I enjoy it, although the conditions I'm forced into aren't always the most comfortable.  I'm willing to put up with the environment for the end results.  The things I do make people's life better.  I like that.  

And I am overwhelmed with joy that I have been blessed to bring my experiences and skills into concert with some others who are equally blessed and skilled and gifted and who also have myriad experiences in the things we do.  None of us by ourselves, as good as we are, have the opportunity to be what we can be together.  And only God could have brought this group together, whatever we might like to think to the contrary.

But this reminder not to make "it" about us is even more crucial as we walk into this season, Advent.  The coming of Christ the Messiah, the redeemer of humanity.  The fullness of God in helpless babe.  It slams home the depth of meaning behind everything we do in our daily walk, because "it" isn't about us, "it" is about the blessing that we can be to others through the gifts that God gives us.  When you get right down to it the breath in our nostrils is His, everything that follows should rightly glorify Him.  We are merely the stewards of what He has freely given.  So be you, be good at what you do - and understand that as you are mindful and intentional about these things you are glorifying God and blessing others whether they recognize it or not.

Let's go... be good at what you do, and watch as the Lord builds the house through your hands.  Trust Him to guard it as well. ;-)