Around The Clock

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here is always something to do, it seems, around the house.  My mother particularly enjoys it when I make this statement because she is constantly working in her house, making sure everything is clean, maintained, and operating at premium levels.

Honestly, I don’t know how she did it with 3 kids and a full-time job.  No matter her schedule, our clothes were always clean, our house was always tidy, and meals were always served warm.  How I wish I could match her efficiency. Even today she can, and does, work circles around me.

This was very evident in just the past few weeks as my parents and my sister visited with me for two weeks.  I arrived home from my trip to Europe on Friday, March 19^th. On Sunday, March 21^st, my family showed up.  It didn’t take mom and dad long to get to work, tidying up the yard and attending to a few things in the house.  I arrived home from work to find one less thing on my “to do list” and supper was hot, just as I knew it would be.

What amazed me was my parents desire to work even when they were on vacation.  Every day they had things to do and every day when I arrived home I found them done.  In my absence work—and plenty of it—had been done.

Have you ever stopped to think just how busy God is on a daily basis?  He is constantly watching out for you, making sure that you are protected, that you have food, that you have a job that your heart keeps beating, the list just goes on and on.  Yet he never tires and he never fails to attend to the tiniest detail.

Jesus, himself, underscored this idea in the 5^th chapter of John’s gospel.  The Pharisees were strict keepers of the law and when Jesus performed a miracle or if his disciples ate grain on the Sabbath, they were quick to point it out.  Jesus never grew impatient with them. Instead, he wanted them to understand that God always works, even when we are unaware of it.

In John 5:17, Jesus simply says, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."  Notice that Jesus wants his listeners to understand that his Father is always at work.  But Jesus takes it one step further by stating that he is also at work.  His work was to do the work that God sent him to do.  In other words, we are to be about God’s business and we are to be about it on a continual basis.

When I was growing up, I was amazed at the amount of work my parents turned out.  The house was always clean, the grass was always mowed, clothes were always washed, folded, and put away, and there was never a lack of things to be done.  In our walk with the Lord, we need to understand that the work is constant.  Whether we are reading our Bibles or having a conversation with a co-worker, we are to be about God’s business.  He is always working.  How about us?