Did you ever work a second job? Be warned, if you have never taken Financial Peace University (FPU to us insiders), then choose wisely before you do. Dave Ramsey's little short-term financial management course will convict you to take on some grueling, wee -hours-of-the-night, working-alongside-a-zit-faced-high-school-dropout, minimum-wage job in order to sort-of help you catch up on an overdue bill or two. I did it for a little while. I worked at Starbucks. It was a weird year in my life. I had a "regular" job that I liked, but it didn't pay me what I needed to survive. So I took on a night job at Starbucks. What was weird about it? People would ask me where I worked, and I had to choose which job I was going to put in the forefront of the conversation. Most of the time I would tell people I was a Mentor-recruiter. That was my day job. It sounded more prestigious. But then sometimes I had to say, "oh ya, and I also work at Starbucks." Sometimes I would tell people about Starbucks first. Because even though Starbucks doesn't pay enough of a salary to rival a good afternoon pan-handling downtown, Starbucks is kind of cool so you feel kind of cool when you work there.
Yes, this blog is a continuation of my last blog regarding Being Like Jesus.
This is my question to you, my faithful reader: Which of these is more glorifying to God? First scenario: An expert cellist has been practicing cello fervidly for twenty years of his life. He finally gets the opportunity to perform for an entire city as the guest solo cellist with the local philharmonic. He plays a composition written by a famous composer. It is an instrumental piece with no lyrics. It is a Mass. This means that the composition is inspired by the church liturgy of Mass. His performance is beautiful, bringing chills to his listeners because of his heart-felt musical interpretations. Second scenario: Another cellist is equally skilled as the first. He also has given his heart and soul to practice. He is a Christian. He also performs in front of a city an instrumental composition. However, the composition he performs is a modern one, and it is inspired by a Hindu meditation ritual. It is beautiful, and the audience is deeply moved. Third scenario: A young-lady works at Starbucks. She goes to work every day and smiles for every customer. She makes every latte' as though it were for her own best friend. She converses with the customers and genuinely wishes to know about their lives, offering encouragement and positive support every chance she gets. Fourth scenario: A pastor stands in front of a church once a week and preaches ideas and interpretations of the scripture. During the weekdays he spends much of his time writing his next sermon, but also fulfills the duties of visiting the hospital, conducting weddings and funerals, counseling members of his church, and planning church events. He is good at sharing Jesus with people when he goes out into public. Some people like it, and some are a little turned off, but they smile anyway in order to be nice.
Of these four scenarios, which one of these individuals is bringing more glory to God? Tick-tock, tick-tock. I know, some of you are saying that glorifying God is not a competition. I know that. But for the sake of argument, as you read the scenarios what stirs in your mind? What scenario brings you a little emotional friction? Which one seems certain?
If you get a handful of everyday church-going Christians into a room for some decent spiritual conversation, at some point the topic may come up for discussion regarding how we live our Christian lives among our workplace and out "in the world". Inevitably some will say comments like, "I try to find some opportunities around the office to share with my coworkers a little about how God has made an impact on my life." Or, "Cindy is really going through some hard stuff at work. She has been sharing her struggles with me at work and it is giving me some opportunity to share my faith with her." When I hear folks say these kinds of statements, I must admit, an honest admiration comes over me as I recognize their warm and caring hearts. I have even envied these dutiful Christians who are making such sincere effort to share their faith whenever they get those little open doors. I have done it also.
We often think of our Christian efforts as a second job. When I worked at Starbucks, that part-time job was my lower priority employment. So, I made sure that my work schedule at Starbucks was flexible enough to bend and compromise around my first priority job. Similarly, we all know that we have to work to make a living. So we go to work and tolerate the non-Christian world a little bit. Many of us hope that we can bring a little bit of the Kingdom into these somewhat darker places. Many of our pastors challenge us to do so. Invite someone to our church. Look, we will even create an event that is non-threatening so that the invite seems less like evangelism and more like a little non-drinking party. Your work friends may just show up and then we can really begin to show them what we are all about. In a sales job, they call this the Soft Close; closing the deal when the customer never really makes a deliberate decision. Good strategy. It works sometimes.
C.S. Lewis loved the concept of story. He believed that you could sometimes reach people with a stronger message if you could tell them a story that generated the feelings of a message, rather than the blatant message itself. In other words, a person could read The Chronicles of Narnia and say to themselves, "Aslan seems really amazing, I wish I could meet Aslan." Since Aslan represents a Christ-figure in that series of books, a person finds themselves hungering for Christ without Christ ever being mentioned. Story inspires people. When people are inspired they journey and seek. God likes when people journey and seek.
Scripture tells us that, if there is no praise for God, even the rocks will cry out to praise Him. The New Testament also tells us that Christ could raise up followers out of inanimate objects if needed. What the heck is this all about? Admittedly, I have read these versus and taken them as a sort of threat. If you don't praise God enough, God might start making a bunch of noise and hullabaloo from these rocks and trees. Nobody wants that! I read it a little differently today. Here is what I think it really means: God doesn't need our praise. God will be praised. Everything that He creates brings Him praise. EVERYTHING. He created it, it brings Him glory. He is reminding us to keep ourselves in our proper perspective. If you go around shouting the name of Jesus all day, great. But be careful, you may start thinking too much of yourself. Remember, you're not really accomplishing more than a rock or a tree in the hands of God.
Incidentally, God created atheists. I'm not saying that He likes atheism, but he definitely made the atheist, and he definitely gave the atheist the freedom to believe that God does not exist. Want to annoy an atheist? Tell him or her that you really like the way that he or she is glorifying God by working out truth and attempting to help others with their belief, or lack of belief. That will really get under their skin. I read this morning in the book of Matthew that the Ninevites and the Queen of the South (both groups represent non-Jewish folk, or non-believers) will judge that generation of Jews because they recognized truth when they sought it. Seriously, Jesus said that. I'm not making this stuff up. How do we Christians feel about the fact that Jesus tells us that some non-Christians may judge us in the next life because they knew how to live and we do not?
Like many of my writings, I raise these questions in order to raise your questions.
What am I getting at in all of this? I think my main concern is that we compartmentalize our time spent glorifying God as though it were a part time job among our full time efforts. In other words, we do not think of our career, our hobbies, our goals, our investments, and our business conversations as the stuff of God-glorification. They are simply jobs that we must do, and we hope to do them morally well. And in the midst of them we hope we can insert some God-glorification on the side in a way that doesn't interfere too much with office time. I'm not saying that we should be more vocal about our faith around the office. In fact the opposite. I'm saying that your career brings glory to God. Your hobbies bring glory to God. Your goals bring glory to God. Your investments bring glory to God. If you feel that they don't, don't worry about it so much. Just don't be surprised when the rocks and the trees start living a more fulfilling life than you.
In regards to my four scenarios at the beginning of this blog: I think you probably know what I was getting at. I personally would rather hear a beautiful cello sonata than a preacher. That's just me. I really like my lattes too. As for the preacher, I know he might be working hard. But he isn't really telling me anything that I couldn't find for myself if I wanted; just a little Bible-reading and some prayer perhaps. But I don't know how to make a good pumpkin spice latte' on my own. And I certainly can't play a cello sonata like that person who glorified God with all of those years of practice and that awe-inspiring performance. Given the choice on who I would rather spend more time with, I think I know.
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