"Making Tools Chant That Saints Might Sing"

It’s an old story, but one worth the retelling.

A man was walking through a city in Europe many, many years ago and came across the construction site of a cathedral. Everywhere workers scurried to and fro, busily focused upon differing tasks. Inside the half-finished shell of the sanctuary, the man neared a stonecutter, arms covered in a layer of fine stone powder, hammer and chisel in hand, and asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m chipping away at this stone to fit it into one of the columns there.” He returned to his work.
The man found a carpenter and asked him the same question: “What are you doing?”
The carpenter replied (without looking up), “Carving the altar rail.”

As he left the sanctuary, he came across a man stooping over to collect bits of stone and chips of wood and placing them into a worn wooden bucket. “And what are you doing?” The man stood up straight, looked at his questioner, and said, “I’m building a cathedral.”

We often lose focus of the true importance of our job. We get so wrapped up in the tasks at hand (or watching the clock on the wall, computer screen or phone) that work effectively becomes reduced to nothing more than something to “get through.” We get up, go to work, take lunch, work some more, leave, go home exhausted, go to bed, get up the next day, etc. It’s helpful to think, “Why am I doing this?” or, like the story above asks, “What am I doing?”
Ask that question in your workplace and you will likely get answers such as:
“Making a paycheck.”
“Paying the bills.”
“Accomplishing tasks.”
“Working for the boss.”

We need people who will be “cathedral-builders.” No matter how humble, insignificant or thankless the job may seem to be, those people say, “I’m building a cathedral. I’m working for God.” Do you see your work as a sacred duty or a dull drudgery? Maybe you need to realign yourself with the command from Col. 3:23, 24: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, and not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Dustin C. George
Minister to Single Adults
www.sevierheights.org