9 to 5 Sanctuaries

By: Glen Schneiders, Crossroads Christian Church, Lexington KY

Gordon MacDonald directed a ministry in downtown New York City. He became acquainted with the public transportation drivers because he regularly used their services. Every so often he would have breakfast with some of the drivers. At one particular breakfast a driver lamented his vocation.

He said to MacDonald, “I wish I had a job like yours that was making a difference in the lives of people.” MacDonald offered some very sage advice. “I want you to try something for me. When you get on your bus tomorrow morning, before you do anything else I want you to close the door and pray this prayer: God make this bus a sanctuary for your presence today and make me your instrument of mercy and kindness.”

The bus driver reluctantly agreed to pray that prayer but was quite skeptical that anything could possibly change his tedious, menial job into something as significant as a sanctuary for God to work. A month went by before MacDonald crossed paths with the driver again.

When he did, he found a man quite different from the one that he had dined with the month before. Incredulous, the man told story after story of how God had used him to minister to the pain and needs in the lives of his harried passengers. God had indeed made his ordinary bus into sanctuary to dispense God’s mercy and kindness.

I’m going to guess that some of you aren’t real thrilled with your occupation. You see no connection between what you do and what God wants to do in the loves of people.

Will you take a moment today, as soon as you can, to quietly say to God, “Make this office…make this classroom…make this shop…make this warehouse a sanctuary? Make me an instrument of your kindness and mercy today.”

Colossians 3:23 (NIV) “Whatever you do (italics mine), work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men…”

Instead of going to work today for your company, why not go to work for God? I look forward to hearing what God does through you and in you, because God will show up if we make our workplaces His sanctuary.