It is always so encouraging for me to hear about the great things that God is doing in the lives of others. Yes, I know that I am blessed beyond belief and for that I am grateful, but for me to hear how God is blessing someone else? This brings me even greater joy. This weekend at my church, I got a great opportunity to experience this. As a part of our outreach theme for this month our church brought back three pastors who were sent out from our church to plant a new one somewhere else in the country. Throughout the sermon, these three men shared with us some of their God at Work stories and they were nothing short of amazing. It was great to hear just how God works things to fit into his perfect plan. With that being said, I hope that this will be an encouragement to you as well readers. I hope that my words are uplifting and encouraging for you as you read them today.
At what point did it become ok to be lazy? To cut corners? To take the easy way out? I am finding more and more that this is the path that is taken with many if not most of my generation. I don't know where it came from. Our parents weren't this way, and our grandparents certainly weren't. So why the change? Why are we so quick to settle on the mediocre?
I had these thoughts in mind as I was working alongside several of my peers last night during closing time. After yet another frustrating evening of what became a very late night, I summoned everyone together for a quick debriefing session. What I came to find out was interesting. They were very open with me in saying that they didn't have a lot of motivation to get out early at the end of the night. This was clear, so I asked them what it would take to get them motivated. There response to me was, well there was no response. You see, they didn't even know. Long story short, this brief chat about quicker closes turned into a discussion about putting forth your very best effort to honor God first, and their boss second. While I am still looking for that perfect motivation for my team, I found it interesting that Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A was discussing this very same topic in his blog update titled "Sweep Well" just last Thursday. In it, he quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he said "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare composed poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."
What this is saying, is that no matter what task you have been given to do, you should look at it and approach it as if it were of utmost importance to you. This is your task. You own it. You are to be held accountable for it. If that quote dosen't do anything for you, maybe this next one will hit home. It comes from Colossians 3: 23-24
It says, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ."
In other words, Whatever you do, do it for the glory of the Lord in Heaven who created you, and will judge you for your deeds.
I am not completely innocent either. I can recall many occasions where I cut corners to get the job done more quickly, but in the end, I always knew that I hadn't given my all and that the final product could have been better. If there was a way to give my entire team this thought process, I would do it. To take ownership of yourself and your work, to treat our store like it it their store. Something that they are personally responsible for. What a change we would see. Imagine working with a group of people in which every one of them takes pride in the work they are doing.
It has to start with us though. We cannot sit idly by waiting for someone else to start the revolution. After all we only have control over one thing, and that is ourselves. If we change the way we think about our work, and take pride in everything that we are doing, the odds are that this will catch on with the team. Maybe not right away, but if they see you acting this way consistently they won't be able to help themselves but to jump on board along with you.
All aboard!
In Christ
No comments:
Post a Comment