What looks like bad work to you? It can be a very personal thing – I was surprised when I told people about leading Redeem the Commute, and they said, “I’m glad someone is doing it, but especially glad it’s not me.”

I watched a TV show lately about a tow truck driver – it showed him going about his work in the middle of the night, doing a job many wouldn’t want. But he said he’d tried multiple jobs, hated them all – and then found the towing business and it just fit. He’d found his passion for work, even though other people would hate it working those late nights, alone, at risk and dealing with mechanical work.

There are definitely bad jobs out there – some are really awful, which became apparent with media coverage, for example, of the textile industry in Bangladesh.

Some jobs aren’t terrible themselves, they are just a bad fit.

And there are some good jobs that we see in the wrong light – something about us means they are less than they should be. We might think they’ll be much more than they are, or we might think too highly of ourselves to do certain kinds of work, even though they are good.

Question: What’s the worst job you ever had? What made it so bad? Was it bad for everyone, or just you?

Acknowledgements: Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavour and Work & Rest

Ryan Sim - May 2, 2013

Thursday - Act On It - Pompous Prayer

This week is about the practice of prayer, and our motivations. We've seen this week how God says we can get what we want out of prayer. If we want to pray, wherever, however, to know and love God, then we can have that kind of relationship with him - it's offered to us. If we want to pray in public to impress people with our big words and religiosity, we can have their applause. But that’s it. I think every sitcom has an episode with a high school reunion, where someone scrambles to find the most beautiful, successful date possible to make everyone else jealous. Dating them because of what other people will think, rather than because they truly want to know and love the person. In the same way, we can try and use God, and the outward signs of a relationship with him, to try and impress others. But Jesus gives us an example of prayer, known as the Lord's Prayer He started it out with relationship being number one. He began with Our Father. Actually, he said, Abba, an Aramaic word like daddy. Here’s my paraphrase: Your name is holy. We want your kingdom to come to this earth, for your realm of heaven to be our realm. We trust you to provide for us now and forever, even though we rebelled against you in sin. Because of that you owe us nothing, we owe you everything, but you gave us everything instead. Help us to forgive others in the same way, and keep us from temptation to sin and rebel against you again, so we never stray into evil again, but remain in your light. Every line is a reflection back to him of God’s values and teachings…as we’ve seen them in Jesus. This is not a prayer telling God anything he doesn't know…trying to use or control God. It's not a prayer about how big our words are, or how many there are. It's about relationship… God I know you and what you care about, and want to know and care about the same things. That attitude is most apparent in the line, "Your will be done." Challenge: Pray, this prayer today, quietly, alone. The version in Matthew, might be slightly different from what you may have memorized in the past…but we’ll use it because it’s what we studied today. Start with the whole thing. Then go line by line, and pray to God about each line. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13 ESV)

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