Inconsequential Work

Then I remembered offering encouragements to a person who had performed similar tasks. I recalled explaining how the job she did was behind the scenes, seldom noticed, and taken for granted. Yet her work was the glue that held things together. I recalled a former company senior vice president who encouraged his managers to be willing to “do floors, windows and more if that’s what it took to make a client successful.” I thought of the CEO of that same company, who drove down to a worksite to help a young employee by making copies to ensure he met a deadline. Then I remembered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his words of encouragement and wisdom: 

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote 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.’”

“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”

Our greatest testimonies of faith are not spoken through loud proclamations in a house of worship, but the dedicated resolve with which we perform everyday tasks. It is the everyday work that someone is watching, even when we don’t realize we are being watched. Hopefully those who watch recognize our work is done with joy, peace, enthusiasm and quiet professionalism. Not necessarily because the work we do is exciting or in the limelight, but because we seek to glorify God.

Even when our work goes unnoticed by the masses, it is being evaluated by God. If what we do means nothing to anyone else, let it mean something to us. Let that work be pleasing to God. Let it be representative of who we truly work for, and exemplify His work ethic and standard for excellence in all things. Nothing we do is inconsequential when it bears witness of our faith and our God.