We like the idea that our lives might matter greatly, that our work might reach thousands, that our names might become associated with something worthwhile. Even those of us who would never admit to wanting fame can be surprisingly fond of being noticed.
We may not require a stage, exactly, but we would rather like someone to notice that we swept it.
Perhaps this is why the words of Paul in the third chapter of Colossians are both comforting and unsettling:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” – Colossians 3:23
Whatever you do. Those words leave us little room for distinguishing between the important work and the unimportant work.
Journalist and satirist P.J. O’Rourke once wrote, “Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.” There is something painfully recognizable in the joke. We are often quite willing to devote ourselves to a great cause while remaining reluctant to perform the small act of service sitting directly in front of us.
And our modern world has only magnified the temptation. We live in an age where nearly every accomplishment can be announced and every milestone applauded. A child is accepted into a prestigious university. Someone receives a significant promotion. A business reaches a milestone. A ministry grows. A book is published. A championship is won. Within moments, hundreds of people can offer their congratulations.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating these things. Joy ought to be shared. But the danger comes when we begin to confuse what is celebrated with what is valuable.
No one applauds the mother who washes the dishes for the thousandth time. There is no announcement for the father who quietly works an extra shift because his family needs him. No congratulatory post for the woman who sits patiently with an aging parent, the parent who folds another basket of laundry, the employee who does an honest day’s work when no supervisor is watching, or the friend who makes the phone call because she knows someone is lonely.
These things are rarely photographed. They are almost never praised. And yet Heaven sees them.
In Every Moment Holy, Volume III: The Work of the People, Sarah Wilson offers a beautiful prayer for precisely this sort of hidden labor: “As I wash and scrub and rue the lack of tangible evidence of my daily labors, let me instead take joy in this; I am loving well the next person to eat from this dish, and O my Lord, it is enough.”
Perhaps that is one of the great transformations of Christian life: realizing that the value of our work is not determined merely by the size of its audience.
A dish can become an act of love. A meal can become an offering. A diaper changed in the middle of the night can become an act of worship. An email answered with patience, a floor swept without complaint, a child listened to when we are tired, a coworker treated kindly when no advantage can be gained from it, a task completed carefully though no one will ever know who did it. These things may seem terribly ordinary to us.
But Christianity has always had a way of making the ordinary holy.
Christ Himself spent most of His earthly life outside the public eye. Before the crowds gathered, before the miracles were recorded, before the sermons were preached and the cross was raised, there were years in Nazareth about which Scripture tells us little. The Son of God lived much of His earthly life in what we might call obscurity.
We should perhaps be slower, then, to despise our own hidden years.
The world teaches us to ask, Who noticed?
Christ teaches us to ask, For whom was it done?
That is an entirely different question.
For if I work only for human masters, then human recognition will inevitably become part of my wages. I will need the compliment. I will watch for the acknowledgment. I will notice when someone else receives credit. I will become resentful when my contribution is overlooked.
But if I am working for the Lord, the entire economy changes. The unnoticed thing is no longer wasted. The unthanked service is no longer meaningless. The work that must be done again tomorrow is no longer proof that today’s work did not matter.
Perhaps this is why the mundane can be such a revealing place spiritually.
Great moments often call forth great effort.
Ordinary moments reveal who we are when there seems to be nothing to gain.
Anyone may behave nobly when the trumpet sounds. The harder question is what we do when no trumpet ever comes. Do we still serve? Do we still give our best? Do we still choose patience? Do we still wash the dish?
Colossians does not tell us to work wholeheartedly only when the work is meaningful, appreciated, impressive, or likely to produce visible results. It simply says, “Whatever you do.”
The grand assignment and the small one. The ministry and the meeting. The public achievement and the private sacrifice. The work that changes thousands of lives and the work that makes life a little easier for one person sitting across the table.
And perhaps that last one is not so small after all.
Our labor may never make a difference to multitudes. It may never receive hundreds of likes or generate applause. It may never become something we would think worthy of announcing. But it can make a difference to one person loved by God.
And if Christ loves that person infinitely, then serving them cannot possibly be insignificant.
The world may never see much of what we do.
God does.
The world may never applaud it.
God knows the heart with which it was offered.
And perhaps one of the quiet freedoms of the Christian life is learning that this is enough.
So wash the dish. Make the meal. Answer the call. Do the work. Keep the promise. Show up again tomorrow.
And whatever your hands find to do, whether anyone notices or not, do it wholeheartedly.
Not for the applause of the crowd. Not for the click of the “like” button. Not even for the satisfaction of being recognized as a good and faithful person.
Do it as working for the Lord.
For in the Kingdom of God, some of the holiest work may be the work no one thought important enough to notice.