Tell Me A Story: Devotions From Time Of Grace MinistrySample

STORY #4: My work matters

One of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s best Sherlock Holmes stories is entitled “The Red-Headed League.” A man with flaming red hair was hired to go to an office and copy out the Encyclopedia Britannica longhand day after day for a handsome salary. It turned out that this “work” was meaningless--a criminal had hired him simply to get him out of his house so he could dig a tunnel from its basement into a bank vault.

“Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money” (Matthew 25:15-18).

Do you ever fear that your life has little significance? God expects no more, but also no less, than that you go to work for him with whatever talents you’ve been given. He is all-powerful, of course, and it’s not that he needs our work. But it gives him special delight when we get in tune with his agenda and choose to work for him.

Remember what you’ve been praying? Whose kingdom come? Whose will be done on earth as in heaven? Every offering and tithe you give, every hour you donate, every word you speak in his service, every prayer you send to heaven really matters.