Welcome! This is the first of many (I hope) messages that I want to share with you. Over the past several months I have been attending church at Brookhills and the theme each week seems to be about being a missionary.
I always visualized that being a missionary meant long distance travel, mosquitoes, diseases, sweat and dirt. Speaking to people that didn't understand what I was saying. But, it has finally dawned on me that I can be a missionary from my own home or office. It occured to me that the internet would be a way that I could open up conversation about our spiritual lives. The one thing that we all have in common is our careers, so that is the topic that I would like to start with.
SURRENDERING OUR CAREER
Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others. It means putting love first. In everything. You are in business to spread love. The key to a successful career is realizing that it is not seperate from the rest of your life, but rather an extension of your most basic self. And your most basic self is love.
Knowing who you are and why you came here - that you are a child of God and that you came here to heal and be healed - is more important than knowing what you want to do. What you want to do is not the important question. The question to ask is, "When I do anything, how should I do it?" And the answer is, "Kindly". People don't normally associate business with kindness, because business has come to be regarded as simply a tool for making money. We are not in business to make money, we're in business to inject love into the world.
Just think about it. A smile, a small compliment, a handshake, etc. means so much.
Welp, that is all for today. Comments and opinions are welcome.
Most of the above information came from a book that I read 15 years ago and then again over the past couple of weeks. It is called "A Return to Love" and is written by Marianne Williams.
Peace Bro,
MM (Missionary Momma)
I'm proud to be your daughter. You are amazing and have so much to teach us still. Keep us enlightened and let's all make a difference together!
ReplyDeleteLove you mom - Jenny
"Missionary Mom",
ReplyDeleteNicely said and I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to write this email to all of us. To follow up to what you said in a brief email, there's a quote that I keep as my background picture on my computer. This quote just reiterates what you said...
"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, or a garden patch... to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
And your right, 'missionary' work does not mean going over seas or going to another state...we can look within our schools or our neighborhoods; even our friends & families. But regardless of what we do; we should do it to the glory of God who has blessed us. How ironic is it that I read 1 Peter 4 two days ago...verses 10-11 make a case that we should not do things for ourselves but for others.
"(10) Each one should use whatever gift he has recived to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. (11) If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised throught Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen."
-1 Peter 4: 10,11
I myself have a long way to go to change the way I do things, or as you put it, to focus on "How" I do things...Again, I thank you for the email and I look forward to the next edition of "Missionary Mom"!
Peace out!
-Matt J