It is Sunday evening and as I am preparing to head back to LA for the week, I am pondering how many people I benefit professionally against how many I benefit personally.
For example, I work eighty to one-hundred hours a week, and these efforts help my best friend Ofir (our company’s CEO), and about thirty or forty people in Vietnam that work on our projects.
But the exchange is that I am left with almost no personal time to write or do much else–I am not alone in this as most people know what I am talking about
As we chase careers, success, degrees, money, etc… it is really easy to lose our time as we get swallowed up by the things we are working towards
For me, I have worked like this for about a year and a half, and it has been really difficult in a lot of areas
I love my friends, and I really enjoy my work, but the main thing that I think about is how many people my professional skills benefit versus how many people my personal skills can help, ie: I can help people make money or I can help others work towards salvation
Every Christian faces this conundrum (or should anyways!)
My friend Ofir asked me why I don’t dedicate my life to bringing people to God if I am so passionate about it
A great question, and coming from someone who would have a tough time if I wasn’t there
I ask myself that a lot now, and am reminded of my Grandmother who was a very bitter, jaded woman almost all of the time that I knew her, but in her twilight years, she spent her time in Africa as a missionary
You have to know my Grandmother to understand what this really meant, but she basically hated going out in the sun and was so white she gave Casper the Friendly Ghost a run for his translucent money
But, later in life, she decided it was more important to be out in the raging hot sun and dirt, spreading the gospel and love of God, than it was staying in her safe, comfortable home environment
It sounds kind of emo, but I am sitting here next to Amy playing praise music on the piano, writing about my family, and I am getting a little misty
We can’t forget it is that we are called to do, as our personal salvation is only a piece of the puzzle, saving others is so incredibly important, we can never forget this
/emo
Well, this is the start of another week, thank you so much for letting me take this journey with you!
PS: The photo above was taken on Saturday while at Benihana (a famous Japanese restaurant chain) for my friend Jocelyn’s birthday, the hilarious Mexican chef was named “Jesus”
Only in America!
You probably don’t realize it, Nathan, but while you’re active in your professional life, you’re doing a mixture of the two–personal and professional; bringing Christ along with you into the marketplace. I believe God honors what we do professionally and creates opportunities for sharing our faith and bringing others onto the “gospel ship” so to speak. Not all of us will have the opportunity to be missionaries abroad, but we can be missionaries with those we interact with daily at work. That’s been my experience
Hi Alison,
That is definitely true, though I would enjoy spending time not having to worry about money so I could be able to focus totally on working for God!