Ten Years Gone

Ten years ago I packed up everything and headed into the great unknown. Fresh out of college (roughly; I was waiting tables at Bennigan’s for almost a year) I was moving to a place I had only read about before to begin my career.

In that time, I have logged more than 20,000 hours at my desk, in meetings or on the road to support my work. I have commuted 200,000 miles and spent 3,750 hours doing so.

In contrast, in the same amount of time I have spent 1040 hours sitting in church on Sunday mornings, driving 7280 miles back and forth from my home. If I add board meetings, leadership meetings, and other ministry activities I could triple these numbers and still fall well short of the time I have devoted to my job.

Assuming I had an hour quiet time every day in that span (regrettably, not a safe assumption), that is still only 3650 hours spent in prayer and Bible study. Still not close to those 20,000 hours.

So based on these numbers alone, can you tell what my priority in life is?

That is why it is so important to live out our faith in every corner of our lives. We cannot limit our Christianity to time spent in the pew on Sunday mornings because that is wholly inadequate. But not only must we be active in our faith while punching the clock, we must also ask the hard question whether our jobs themselves bring glory to God.

And after ten years, given the numbers above, I wrestle over that question every day.

“…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

“Be very careful then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” (Ephesians 5:15-17)