Dear Friends,

As we enter the month of September one of the thoughts which come to my mind is the celebration of Labor Day.  The work we do is so important, but how do we define work?  Do we have to be paid for our labor?  If so that quickly restricts our definition of work.  Does what we do have to have value?  If so what is and is not valuable work lifts its head.  Do we have to do something to be considered working?  If so then things like prayer and simply being lose their meaning.  All of this is to say we need to expand our definition of work is we are linking into God’s definition of work.  As is so often the case God’s ideas are different than ours.

Sometimes we put all kinds of effort into some kind of work and it doesn’t turn out successful.  If we define ourselves by the work we do then the next step is to realize we are not successful at what we are doing.  That is true by the world’s standards, but necessarily God’s.  This becomes a tricky business doesn’t it?  Was Jesus a success?  Not if you look at how many people were present at the Cross.  The world and religious community would say he was an utter failure.  When you return to the story three days later God is saying something else.  This also applies to other spiritual leaders.  Buddha sat under a tree for a long time waiting for enlightenment. Would the world say he was using His time wisely by sitting under that tree for all those years?  Probably not, but God used that time to reveal something to a number of Buddha’s followers.  Like the faithful who have gone before us, how do we find out what God’s ideas are for us?

Through the work of prayer and listening becomes our answer.  Sorry world, but this entails the work of doing nothing.  Talk to most people and they won’t find much value in that occupation of our time.  How often people reflect on what a waste it is for the worldwide monks of different religions to waste their time praying and chanting.  But in God’s Realm they may be the very ones who are holding everything together in this crazy world.  How can this be you ask?  Because they are praying and listening to God so the rest of us might be able to hear over the din of this noisy world encouraging us to waste our time with the useless doing someone else thinks is right for us.  If we are all One spiritually then what they do does matter to us.  Life becomes so much easier when we are simply following the direction our spirit is lifting up to us in our quiet prayer time.  The outer world and our outer world still has its problems, but like the fish who go deeper into the water when there are storms above the water, so we do the same by being quiet.  Will those worldly issues matter when our life comes to an end?

This brings us back to reflecting on our own labors.  God places tasks before each of us. Some fit the general interpretation of getting paid for what we do, some do not.  Some things go as we plan for them, some do not.  Obviously we rejoice when everything goes smoothly, but the longer I live the more life doesn’t work out the way I planned.  My mind goes back to a Man called Jesus who spent three years teaching, preaching and healing only to be rejected, scorned and forgotten by those He trusted most.  Were His labors in vain?  Was God leaving Him abandoned?  Well we know the rest of the story – Resurrection!  This is what happens to us when we labor and things don’t work out.  Like Jesus we may not see the end of the story, but there is always an ending filled with God’s Love which is Success.  As you celebrate Labor Day, I invite you to reflect on your own labors done in the Name of God.

Peace

Gary