Work For God

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23,24.  I thought back to my working years after a recent conversation with a cousin. We were talking about some of the challenges we faced as Christians on the job. He was working at a company in a right to work state where they didn't have to be union members. He had a good work ethic. He just worked at a steady pace, not trying to be fast just pacing himself. He had no trouble meeting the quota for parts. But Union members did not like it and he was harassed. The really sad part was another farm boy that also had a good work ethic and just wanted to make a living. This farm boy was harassed in like manner, and one day to even the score for all the harassment got a gun and was going to even the score, but was arrested before he even made it to work and spent some time in jail. These coworkers who harassed him for just being a good worker really are at fault. This man was just trying to do a good job. He wasn't trying to make them look bad, he just came to do a job and make a living the best he could. My conscience guided me many times on the job. One reason why I think working for God works is because we know God sees all, even when the bosses don't, God does see all.  One time a crew I was on would leave all the jobs open even after they were completed, and on Friday when the lead talked with the Boss, he would say I have 50 jobs open and we need to work Saturday and Sunday to catch up. Then on Saturday and Sunday they would close the jobs out. My conscience would not allow me to do the same. As I would look at jobs and see everything had been completed, I would close the job. This did not go over very well with the lead and others that agreed with his method of getting overtime. I was soon transferred back to the main group. But I saw that later I was still working for the company and that lead was gone and no longer there. This Lead lied on me and I thought the Boss took his word over mine when I was sent back to the main group. I  ran into this same type of dishonesty many times in many ways over the years. Once I came down out of an airplane and saw six of my co-workers sitting at a work bench on double time, shooting the breeze. A supervisor happened to be walking by as I came down the steps, I commented, this is what you pay double time for and pointed to the 6 co-workers shooting the breeze.  I once took over another mans job because he was so far behind and I realized as I was looking at the job why he was so far behind. It seems this co-worker was working on his home projects on company time with company materials and that was his reason for being late on the job completion.  I reported it to a supervisor and word got out that I snitched. It got rough, really rough for a while. Even when we work for just any company on any job doing legitimate and legal work we need to look at is as working for God.  God does see all. I remember after a Vice President and a military officer went to jail for making a deal to sell airplanes to the military and the Military officer had a promise of a job at our company. That was illegal and they got caught, spent time in jail.. The company then sent every employee to ethics training every year. I thought as I sat in this ethics training, this is stuff I learned in Sunday School. I remember another employee that would openly play solitaire on his computer day after day and when merit raise time came, he didn't understand why he didn't get a raise. Everyone else understood that saw him playing solitaire, day after day.  We really do work for God no matter what job we do, and we need to do it honestly and ethically to the best of our ability. God bless LVZ.