An Article in Progress

This is just a loose thought for now, but I want to think a little further about how Christian service gets mixed up with the idea of being very busy, very industrious.

I think people who work in service industries easily fall into that frame of mind, in thinking doing lots and lots of routine things each day is the only kind of service Heaven needs.

I also think some service-industry folk may not be very understanding of how working at home can be different from washing loads and loads of dishes (and being up to the strictest industry codes on that), putting item after item into an oven each hour, or attending to an ever-increasing mountain of laundry (in the commercial setting).

At home, working with Jesus in heart is purposeful and not about doings loads and loads of things. But it does mean things need to be completed, and it does mean doing one thing and another thing and not just one thing.

There's a lot of self-teaching in working at home.

And, like teachers, who have mandatory breaks for lesson planning, work at home needs daily time for planning (and prayer!). Without planning, prayer, and enough breathing room for creativity, some things won't work out.

In what other ways are serving at home and in industry different? And in what ways are these different kinds of service alike?