Dale:
I worked at a salvage yard and I was able to buy wrecked cars. And I fixed them up and I used them for my family and I would sell them and make a little profit. And I had the opportunity to rebuild a wrecked car and the wrecked car was given to a friend I had met a couple times. But he was commissioned to pastor in Detroit. It was a gift to this guy to take and start his ministry in Detroit. My heart went with that car, and my heart went with him. That car bore a connection from me to him. I don’t think I saw him again for maybe a year or two. But I always had that spirit connection. There was always a draw to pray for him. To believe for him. And many times in our work things like that opportunity comes up that we can do things. My work was a form of worship. There were numerous ones where that principle was put into play. It doesn’t matter what you do for somebody, put your heart into it.
Ron:
I used to do stairs for a living. And I would do custom, multi-million-dollar homes and bent handrails and do all the fancy woodwork. I would enviably get into jobs that were over my head. One of the most memorable times is when I just started. I was required to learn from the ground up so I had to spend two years in the wood shop learning to build all the parts that the installers were taking out and using. Finally, after a couple of years, I went to the owner of the company and said, you know I have been here two years and you promised me if I would stay I would be afforded the opportunity to become an installer. And so, he broke down and let me become an apprentice to an installer, and I was out there as an apprentice a couple of years anyway. Finally, they decided that I was knowledgeable to go on my own. So, the first job they sent me on they decided to send me to this custom home that was already built, people living in it, and they wanted to redesign the staircase. I was working in an environment where people were living and so there were already finished floors, finished carpeting, and everything that I had to work with, without destroying what they had. I was working on marble floors and all this type of thing, and trying to put post into marble floors without destroying the marble. After about a week of that, I sat down one day and I just broke down, no one was home obliviously. I was just crying and I said Lord I can’t do this. I just don’t know what to do. He never did answer me about that, it was like get up and go back to work, so I did. And I kept working, working, and finally, I got the job done. I felt good about what I did and I felt like I did the best I could. In about two weeks later I got called into the office by the owner and sat down in front of his desk and he said, I just received a letter from these people that you did this custom staircase, and they said that it was the best work that they have ever seen. My jaw was on the ground and I knew that it was just God. God had done that because I was above my abilities but He just helped me do it. And I ran into so many other times like that where I would bid a job and then I would get into it and realize oh my goodness this is stuff I have never done before, and yet the Lord would show me what to do. I believe if your heart is doing it unto the Lord and you’re worshiping in it, that He is there and then amazing things happen.
Laurie:
That’s the fun of walking with the Lord. You know, I know there are aspects of walking with the Lord that sometimes you know you kind ’a go oh it’s not totally fun. But I think there are more delightful things in a walk with God than there are that are hard.
Sandy:
No kidding.
Laurie:
It’s easier if you open up and submit your heart to Him, give yourself, let Him change you, and do His work in your heart. It’s a lot easier. It’s like I used to always wonder you know where Jesus went to the cross and despised the shame for the glory set before Him, and I always wondered what glory? Where is the glory set before me, Lord? And but these are the stories that that is the glory set before you when He comes through with His special gift, and it is just incredible. I know Bill and I were working with a couple in the ministries on programming for excel work. You know, I know Bill and I were looking at this and looking at that, we looked at each other and we just said, there is just no way to go the get there from here. And we both just kind ‘a bowed our heads before the Lord and the next thing I know there was such a flow, and we totally got the programming going and done and it was pretty amazing. We just said that was the Lord it wasn’t us getting that accomplished.
Dale:
As we give ourselves as worshipers through the vocations and whatever we are doing, God honors that. With taking and caring it far beyond His returning love to us for doing it. And we don’t know how far things like that go. And we will probably never know. But does it matter? Because it’s done unto the Lord. I think we are putting into practice that principle that we do all things as unto the Lord no matter what you do. Give God an opportunity to be a blessing through you. God is creating a heart in each one of us to serve Him and we all can’t be one thing. The body of Christ is made up of many parts.
Ron:
There is a deep revelation and vision of the Kingdom of God that we are talking about. The Kingdom is truly a Kingdom. And what is amazing about it is if you open your heart to the Lord, and let Him in to your heart, and give Him the opportunity to move through you in whatever vocation. Where ever you’re at whether you’re the President of the United States or you’re a janitor. God doesn’t look at it like you’re the president or you’re a janitor, He is looking at your heart. And if your heart is open to Him all of a sudden whatever you’re doing and where ever you are at amazing, amazing things can happen through menial tasks through your every day life. And that is the Kingdom. It’s God moving through simple people that have just opened their heart.
Sandy:
Jesus actually served others. He washed people’s feet, and that was the most menial thing you could do back in His time. And so, what you are saying is so true. The thing that you are doing to serve one another are the things that God just treasures. That’s the thing of honoring Christ in your brother.
Laurie:
In Acts 6, it talks about the early church, and how there was a complaint that came up from the Hellenistic Jews, the widows, were not being served properly. And so they got all the disciples together and then they said you know we really need to focus on the Word and ministering here, it is not good for us to wait on tables. Pick seven people who are full of the Spirit, you know what I’m talking about, right. This guy a Stephen, full of the Spirit serving tables, and here he is at the same time out doing signs and wonders and moving in God. And so, this illustrates the point, it doesn’t matter what your serving as. Here is a guy serving tables to the widows and at the same time he is out here doing signs and wonders and causing such a stir that they ended up killing him.
Sandy:
And now we talk about him in the Bible.
Ron:
What’s interesting about that story as you were talking Laurie that I never seen before, what did he do to minister to those widows? I mean I always looked at it yeah, he was serving tables and everything and then he was doing miracles and all that. But maybe the real miracle was what he was doing in the hearts of those widows.
