Not many people I know worked a paid job in their calling from the beginning of their career. Few people I know even knew about calling at the beginning of their working life…! As Downs comments today, perhaps even those who are working in their calling have parts of their day that are not their idea of amazing. Filing, budgeting, diaper changing, reporting and follow up, fund raising—not all of these are fun for everyone. A nurse on Mercy Ships might be working her calling but I’d guess she has difficult days sometimes. When our day job doesn’t feel like it matches our calling at all we can feel doubly disinclined to give it one hundred percent every day. Do you ever have days when you feel as if you’ve done nothing worthwhile?

The scripture verse Downs quotes at the beginning of today’s devotional (Colossians 3:23) is one I once memorised in the NIV which instead of ‘heartily’ (as in the ESV she used) says ‘with all your heart.’ I liked that phrase a lot. It encouraged me to give my all to things that often I really didn’t like: listening to someone tell me a story I’d heard ten times before, making edits to a document I felt were unnecessary, making children’s packed lunches, etc etc.

Recently I came to read this verse in The Passion Translation which I have come to love for its beautiful use of words and imagery. This same scripture from Colossians is written: “Put your heart and soul into every activity you do, as though you are doing it for the Lord himself and not merely for others.”

Read that again, if you will.

Isn’t that lovely?

Doesn’t it shift the focus from me, my calling and mine, to a rightful pose of “It’s all for you, Jesus.”

I want everything I do to be done with all my heart and soul just as if I were doing it for and in front of Jesus himself. Because that’s exactly what I am doing, actually. We all are.