Waking, praying, packing, working, returning, eating, talking, sleeping, and . . . repeating! So our days go by, filled with activities, always on our toes, constantly jumping from one thing to the next, becoming dizzier and dizzier day by day.
But if we slow down—yes—slow down enough to sit in silence for a little while, we are then able to consider profound things. For example, here is a simple but challenging question that may come to mind: Do the many tasks I do really please God?
It’s a loaded question, no doubt, but an important one. How many of us would like to know the answer, even though it may frighten us a little?
Some would suggest that our works are good only if they are efficient. This line of thought is especially prevalent in our culture today. For example, successful businesses continually analyze production methods to ensure the lowest possible cost by having the highest possible efficiency. This may lead us to think of efficiency as a great virtue, perhaps one of the greatest. However, the lives of the saints show us otherwise. For it seems their lives were anything but efficient, filled with midnight prayers, regular fasts, few possessions, and forgotten opportunities. And yet the saints did please God, a great deal, in fact.
Other people might suggest that our tasks are only worthwhile if they are completed according to plan. Incomplete tasks, they would say, are necessarily inferior. But consider a soldier who dies in battle. Is he less honorable and heroic than if he had lived to return home as he had planned? Not at all. In fact the apparent incompletion of his task is a further indication of his patriotic love, showing his willingness to give his all, his very life. Even completing our tasks according to plan is not necessary for a task to be well done.
What then is indicative of a task pleasing God?
In his letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit, which come about by God working through us. They are, in a simple way, the tell-tale sign of God’s presence and sure indicators that our activities are pleasing to him. Only when we have God within us do our lives bear these fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (cf. Gal 5:22-23).
While we are concerned about our work being efficient and completed according to plan, God has different criteria. While we worry about demonstrating our talent and originality and receiving recognition, God’s desire is for our works to be marked by love, a love which is only possible by his love. The fruits of the Spirit cannot be faked or fabricated by us, for they are only possible if Love is in us.
Let us strive and pray, then, so that one day, bearing these wondrous stamps of Love, we may hear our dear Savior say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master” (Matt 25:23).
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Photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash
