I have no joy in it, and I see no purpose in it. And this is so far beneath me, it's not even funny. God, why aren't you using me for the important stuff? And there are those days, and that's where you have to really go before him and go, okay, I surrender myself to you again, and I'm going to understand the truth, that right now, where I am in this place, there are good works that you have prepared for me to do. They are not beneath me. They are not beyond me. They are exactly what you have
suited me for. So, God, show me who you are in me so that I can bring that to this.
And it's giving him honor and glory in all the things that we do. Well, hello again, and welcome to the Trim the Wick podcast. I'm, Dan.
And I'm Becky.
And we are back with you this week, and we are going to be talking about something that everybody. Everybody deals with.
What would that be?
And that is that we all have to work.
I was planning on spending the rest of my life laying in bed, watching tv and eating bonbons. I can't do that.
Well, you know, I guess if I won, the lottery, I guess if, Well, I'd have to play. Play the lottery. But that's a whole nother thing.
And we completely disobeyed everything we were called to do. And, you know, all of that.
Yeah. So, before we get into that, I want to just let you know, if you want to know more about what Becky and I do and trim the wick, you can go to Matthew two five seven.com. and that is our website. And on that website, you can see kind of what we're about, what we do. you also have opportunities to support our ministry and
the work that we're doing around the world. And if you want to keep up with kind of more of our day to day and our quick, hit stuff, subscribe to our instagram at Trim the Wick global. I wanted to talk a little bit about this thing about work, because I think work gets a raw deal.
It does. It gets a bad rap, doesn't it?
I think that this thing of, oh, oh, I gotta go to work, or I gotta do work. It's not really the mindset that we should be having.
No. We tend to begrudge it when we actually. If you look at it, it's part of what we've created to be, isn't it?
Exactly. You know, you go back to the creation story, go back to Genesis. God creates Adam puts him in the garden, and he gives him a job. He tells Adam, hey, Adam, don't just lay around under the trees and in the green grass and soak up the sun. But I, You're supposed to keep the garden. You're supposed to tend the garden, right?
And make sure that it flourishes and grows. And to the extent that all of the seeds were already in the ground, right. Everything was already prepared. But the Lord didn't cause it to grow until there was man to tend it.
We were created to work.
Right.
The thing is, is that. Well, chapter three.
Yeah, chapter three made it a little bit harder to do our work, didn't it?
And, we sin, right? And one of the consequences now of sin is that work, the thing we were created to do is now just gonna become hard, right? And there's going to be thistles and thorns, and we're going to have to struggle, right, to do everything we were created to do.
Right? And the work that woman was given in bearing children and raising children, that now comes with pain and difficulty and. Yeah, yeah.
They were already working the garden. It says that she will have increased pain.
Right.
In childbirth. So all of these things after the fall. Now, chapter three. Now we understand why we struggle with work and why now we go, work. Because it's hard.
It's harder than it was designed to be.
Right. But we were created to work.
Right.
So I want to talk about this thing today, this idea of. That your work is your worship or you can worship through your working.
Absolutely.
And we are told by God that everything that we do, all that we do, should glorify him.
Right.
And that would also be our work.
Right. And because we were created with great purpose, he designed and knit each one of us together. And ephesians two, verse ten, actually says that we're his workmanship, that we were created for good works, which God prepared for us beforehand. Right, right. So his intention in knitting each one of us individually together in our mother's wombs was that he had plans for the work that we would do.
Right. You know, when we look at it that way, that the work that we're doing is good work.
Right.
That the work that we're doing glorifies him, kind of changes our outlook on how we should be looking at the work that we're doing.
It does. It creates an attitude shift when you realize that I'm not doing this day to day drudgery.
Right.
Just because this is the only thing I'm good for. And it's all I'm stuck doing. Yeah, right. Or this stuff just has to be done over and over. No, this should be where we find our opportunity to praise, our opportunity to go. Thank you, Lord, for hands and feet that are strong and healthy and well enough to do this work. Thank you, Lord, for the workplace that you've provided me to go to, that not only gives me a paycheck and provides for my
family. That's a wonderful thing, but it also is an opportunity for me to come in contact with people that need to hear you glorified, need to see the joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self control of the Holy Spirit that I carry into that place. This is a place where you get to be glorified through my life and how I undertake the work that's before me.
Right. And you know, I think about the, demystification, and I'm gonna use that kind of gently as I step into this quote unquote, ministry work that we put on this thing of that. Well, the only work that you do for God is ministry work. The only work that you do for God is basically, if you're a pastor, if you really wanna serve God and serve and dedicate your life to serving God, you must do this in the ministry or you must work in a church. And
that's not at all what the scriptures say. No, it's all of our work glorifies him.
And that was something that we kinda fell into early on. It was a problem in our lives where, we didn't see value in what we did outside of church ministry. So you were a paid vocational staff pastor for a time. I was a paid vocational children's minister. Those things we looked at and we were really able to look at that and go, yeah, yeah, that's, we're doing that for God. And in turn, we tended to put on those around us. I'm gonna call it what it is, the bondage.
Yeah.
Of going. If you're not actively taking part in serving in one of the programmed ministries. Of the church, then what are you doing to serve God? How are you possibly serving God? Well, what God actually says in the scripture is that our whole lives, if we are his, we are a new creation in Christ, then our whole life is ministry work.
Right?
Should be, yes.
Well, and this is one of those stigma things that I think that we need to trim off and trim from the wick here is that idea that if you're not doing work at the church, it's not godly work, or if you're not doing work, in volunteering at the ministry, whatever, it's not godly work. And I know we felt that pressure heavily, to the point where I actually quit a job. So that I could volunteer and spend more hours volunteering at a church because the staff was pressuring
us. Ah, you know, and we gave into it. We gave into the pressure, but the staff was pressuring us, telling us that, you know, what we're doing in the secular world isn't really worshiping God, isn't really serving him, because we had a calling m to be in the church. And, you know, I think that that is one of the things that we really need to trim off, because there are those who do have a calling and do serve, and that's their employment. The Levites.
Right.
There are those who are called to be that, but we're all called to worship in the work that we do.
Right.
And there is no hierarchy. And I think that's one of the problems that we've seen in church work and in ministry work is that, well, I'm more spiritual because I get a paycheck from the church.
Right.
And that's not true.
It's not true. And it puts the. I'm going to go ahead and use churchy words because there's just not a really well defined way other than a churchy word. I hate that. But. But the typical lay person in the church is put under this heavy weight of bondage of their working a 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week job. they'd like to have some time with their family. They're reading in the scripture that there's a Sabbath rest that God put in there, but their day off is never a sabbath.
Right.
Because they're expected to go and do the God serving work in the programs at church, and it creates this huge weight of bondage that God never intended us to carry. You know, whom the son sets free is free indeed. Yes, he is. So this idea that we're tackling today is that whatever you do, whatever is your income source, if you don't have a paid job. I didn't have a paid job for a long time. I was a stay at home mom and homeschooling mom that paid me a paycheck. But it was work, y'all.
Yes, it was. And yes, it is.
It is. It continues to be that work is worship.
Yes.
That work is serving God where you are placed and with the gifts that are put in your hands and in the time of your life. That you're in.
Yes.
So we need to really shift that lie that has been sold.
Yeah. and you said something there that I think is something where we've allowed the world to step in because of this whole westernized idea of being a christian and church ministry and stuff is we've diminished the work of the, and the stay at home mother, like, oh. Because they're not making income. That's not a job. That's not work. That's not something that's qualified as in real work.
And we've raised generation and generation, over the last 30 years of telling women that the only way that you're going to have fulfillment in life is to earn an income. And really, the gospel flips that on its earth. And really, if you look at what we're created to be, if our worship is in our work or. we work in our worship, is that everything we do is worship. Everything we do gives us purpose. Everything we do gives us standing in the
kingdom. Then there's not this, oh, well, you only do this on the weekends, or you only do this, or, you know, this isn't really godly stuff because it's not done in church, or you're not making an income for your family. So you're. You're clearly not the proverbs, you know, woman. And such a horrible distortion of what this thing is of work. Work is supposed to be beautiful. Work is supposed to be something that we were created to
do, like we said in the. In Genesis, that it actually celebrates who God is and what he did for us and how he provided for us and the garden and all that, and we've turned it into something that's just not that at all.
Right? But if we were created in the image of God, and God worked and set back and looked at what he had worked on, looked at what he had created and saw it and said, it's a good. We're created in his image. And so the same thing should be true of everything we put our hand to, right? That when we put our hand to the plow and we don't look back and we keep doing the work that is set before us, whatever that work is, we do it with joy. We do it
with integrity. We do it giving glory to the father for the opportunity that he's given to us, and he becomes a source of joy in our life, even if it's difficult.
Yeah, well, and, you know, I wanted to kind of talk a little bit, because I've had just in the last 1015 years, two opportunities where I've worked outside the church, and it has just opened my eyes up to this thing of work as worship, especially when I worked at, one of our major theme parks here in central Florida, and I was able to minister to people and to love on people and to
encourage them and even pray for them. And in a situation where I was talking to people from all over the world and basically evangelizing without leaving my home, you know, just going to, quote unquote, work. And it taught me, it really taught me of this importance of, as we are going, as Jesus said, as we are going, we are to make disciples, we are to be preaching and teaching, and as we work, we worship, we pray, we minister, we do
all of these things. And that is the fullness of what we should be doing when we're working.
Right. I do. I think I'm going to kind of loop back to something you were saying about, how we diminish the calling of the stay at home mom and the raising up of children and the caring for the home. I think we have allowed the diminishment of so many different things over the years. We have. Even in the church, we have bought into this idea that there are jobs that are the status jobs and the things that we should be striving for and looking for and wanting for ourselves and our
children. And there is other work that is really kind of beneath us. I mean, if you're doing that. I remember when we were kids, you know, it was standard stay in school kids, so you don't have to make a living digging ditches.
Oh, yeah, right. Stay in schools in Florida. Being a roof.
Being a roof. Anything that's, you know, manual labor outdoors, you don't want to be doing that. That's a lie of the enemy. Yes, that's a lie of the enemy. There is nothing worthy work and unworthy work.
Right.
There is work that needs to be done to tend to and, steward well this earth that we have been given.
Yes.
And these families, homes, cities and nations that we have been planted in, there is work that needs to be done on every level. And all of that work, every single bit of it, from the ditch digger up to the CEO executive of whatever.
Right.
All of that work is to be done to the glory of God, if we are his.
Yes. Think of the time where I serve on a farm. Yeah, on a tree farm. And that was pure manual labor. It was literally pulling weeds, trimming trees, loading trees on the trucks. It was a lot of work. When you want to talk about work? I was hurting.
It was very physical labor every day.
I was in my late forties, and it was hard, hard work. But you know what? That was one of the best times that I had, because there was moments where I was by myself for days just working in the fields, and I was able just to pray and to sing. I'd put music on in my headphones and just sing praises and worship all day long.
And it was out of that time period that your missionary work began.
Yeah, yeah.
that was the time period where God was able to get you quiet and alone and focused on him enough to hear him clearly when he said, hey, get your passport.
Yeah.
Hey, go here.
So we are definitely full, board of, you know what, you're gonna work. And your work is worship. And the thing is, is that it's hard. It's difficult. And you know what? Your body's gonna hurt because our bodies are fat. You know, our bodies are falling apart. We're in.
We will put off these corruptible things at some point. Yes.
So it is going to hurt. It is going to be work and physical pain and physical. But you know what? In the middle of that and through all that, we can praise the Lord and worship him while we're doing those things, right.
And we can walk in our callings. You know, we touched a little bit on that. Your calling is largely as apostle, pastor, teacher. Those are your areas of calling and gifting. And for some reason, we have squished all of that to only be used in a certain organizational setting. and that is not the design of the father. When we have callings on our lives. You can have a pastoral calling and never, ever, ever earn your paycheck at a
church. And m yet you can pastor in exactly the way that you were called to pastor in the job that God has placed you in, in the neighborhood that God has placed you in, in the relationships that God brings to you.
All of that work, wherever you earn your paycheck or wherever you put your hand to a task and don't earn a paycheck, all of that work is to be complete, completely saturated in the giftings and callings that God has put in your life, and you will see growth and fruit and worship and praise come out of it.
Right. And, I want to talk a little bit about our mindset and how when we start viewing the work that we do as worship unto him and as a gift that we're supposed to be doing. And one of the things that I wanted to bring up was definitely the time I was working in the tree farm, because I'll be honest with you, I was physically exhausted. Florida, summertime, working hard outside all day.
It's tiring. It is. It was a beat on the body, you know, I think of just a couple, ah, couple weeks ago, a couple months ago, whatever, helping a friend put a roof on, you know, here in Florida, it was April, it was hot, it was work, it was physical labor. And I can remember at night, I, was telling you at night, you know, coming home, and my hands were hurting so much because I hadn't hammered and used a hammer like that in a long time. So my fingers were just in
pain and stuff. But the change and how we view it and the change that we're looking for opportunities for God to speak to us while we're in the middle of that work. I wanted to kind of talk a little bit with you about the work that you do now. You work with in training kids and teaching kids how to swim and things like that. And it's a very physical job.
It is.
And, you're not. You're not a coach that stands on the side and just barks out orders. You're actually in the water, you know, six, 7 hours a day working, with kids and helping them get safe in the water and the attitude change that comes and how you look at your everyday.
I love my everyday. Yeah, I really do. I come out of the pool exhausted, and I am very grateful for a husband who takes care of making sure there's dinner or whatever, because I'm exhausted when I get out of the pool. But, no, God has me in a time now. This, is my 10th season of teaching kids how to swim again because of who God has created me to be and the set of giftings
that God has given me. The vast majority of my students are students who have some physical disability or diagnosis that makes them ineligible for 99% of the swim lessons out there. Like you're saying, my job is a very physical one, because most of my kids aren't holding themselves in the water. I'm holding them. Yes, if they are capable of holding themselves in the water. So much fear or sensory overload involved, or sometimes their diagnoses
involve, seizure disorders. And so I'm holding onto them through seizures in the water. So it is. It is very, very physical, and I would not trade it for anything, because even though I am, being required to pay very, very close, focused attention to my kids, I am being required to keep my emotions very, very level, even if they're pinching me and hitting me. I am being required to sustain a
physical burden. I'm also the one who gets to be there and see them the first time that they gain some freedom of movement in their bodies that they've never known before. I'm also the one that gets to put hands on them and pray over them that God would bring healing to their bodies. I'm the one that gets the phone calls in the middle of the week that says, hey, you'll never believe what so and so did at therapy today.
Yeah. Ah.
And their therapist said it's because the water allowed the range of movement for them to gain a new skill and a new freedom in their personal functioning, in their day to day. It's hard work.
Yes.
And there is so much joy and fruit and transformation of the lives of others that comes out of it. And so, yeah, I wouldn't trade it for anything. There are days when I come out of it going, whew, I'm, not sure about tomorrow.
Right?
No, I wouldn't trade it for anything. And that's true of so many jobs and places that I've held. I've got a weird, varied
00 a.m. biscuit, maker in a restaurant. I worked as a back of house tea brewer at a tea room. I did serve on church staff as a children's ministry director for a long time. You know, it's this weird, varied thing of where God has taken me through my work life. And then for a long time, I was a stay at home mama.
Yeah.
And raised my kids. Every single bit of it. obviously there were days when God had to remind me that my work was the task that he had put in my life was something that he had brought to me and something that he had uniquely gifted me for.
Right.
and, you know, sometimes you gotta go to prayer over that stuff. Sometimes you've got things in front of you and you were like, I am just doing this day in, day out drudge of a job, and I have no joy in it, and I see no purpose in it. And this is so far beneath me, it's not even funny. God, why aren't you using me for the important stuff?
Yeah.
And there are those days, and that's where you have to really go before him and go, okay, I surrender myself to you again.
Yeah.
And I'm going to understand the truth that right now, where I am in this place, there are good works that you have prepared for me to do. They are not beneath me. They are not beyond me.
Yeah.
They are exactly what you have suited me for. So, God, show me who you are in me so that I can bring that to this.
Yep. And it's giving him honor and glory and all the things that we do. And this is the thing of your, as you're changing your mindset. You know, we talk about how the Holy Spirit changes us, the renewing of our mind, the transformation that happens, in us. And a lot of it is setting our m mind on the things above.
Right.
And even when we're doing these simple things, like going to work every day or getting up and doing the work around the house, or having that mindset of, I'm doing this unto the Lord, I'm doing this as a act of worship, I'm sacrificing and doing this as an offering to you, father God. And it just changes everything. You see, it cuts away that nasty wick, it cuts away that char, that stuff. And it's amazing to me, when you start having this mindset, you could have a
horrible day. And trust me, just because you're worshiping and praying and praising does not mean you're not gonna have bad days.
Right. Circumstances are what circumstances are around you. And people are who. People are around you.
Exactly. I mean, you're gonna run into things, you're gonna get flat tires, you're gonna. Stuff happens, right. You know, we live in this fallen world, but every morning you wake up new and freshed and refreshed, and that's this thing of, okay, God, what do you have for me today? Okay, God, what can I offer you today?
And the beautiful thing about that is recognizing that everything that you have to offer him is something that he's already put in you. So he's equipped you for this already, just like he did.
And that's a whole nother thing that we can talk about, and we will be talking about. And I just want to just encourage you, if you have a story, we would love to hear your story about how you thought you were going to be doing something and working, and you thought it was just going to be heavy or whatever. And it turned out to be an amazing blessing, and you got to see how God worked in it, and it changed your view of what work is. And, we would love to hear
those stories. So please let us know. You can write us comments on any of the, podcast formats. You can write us comments, but you can also email us at danathew. Ah. Two, five, seven.com, and we'll get those. And we would love to hear your stories.
Let's encourage one another with those stories. Because you know what? When you're in a tough spot, when you're in a job you don't like or you're in a position that you just feel like you were made for more, but you're waiting for that more to happen, we need to encourage one another with those stories of where, listen, God can use you right where you are.
Yes.
Worship him in it.
Amen. well, thank you so much for hanging out with us again this week. And we hope and pray that this helps you trim, that wick and, be a little bit brighter in the place that you work and with the people that you deal with on a day to day basis.
Absolutely.
And we are excited to hear the stories from you guys. Thank you so much again. We love you guys, and we'll see you again next week.
Love you. Bye.