Kate Harris and I were talking recently about questions people raise regarding the value God sees in the little things. This is especially important when speaking about vocation and wondering about the value of the things we each do each day, the products or services we provide, our particular role as we support some little part of those products or services. After all, what is important to God?
We know God says in Gen 1:26 and 27 “Let Us make man in Our own image.” So He created us—male and female—in God’s own image. From reading the Scriptures we know that God is a triune God who existed before time. In the Godhead there is love, and caring, and deferral to the others, and all the other aspects of interpersonal relationships we experience here on earth. So let’s look at the “love” that is a part of who we are and how God made us to see if we can give a response to the question: What’s so special about an accountant?
Surely an accountant should do her work with excellence and should be ethical in all her dealings. In addition she should know how to share her faith and be willing to do it whenever prompted by the Holy Spirit. We all accept this as minimum acceptable behavior for Christians in the workplace. But what else is there?
Well, we need to look at what God loves and see if we love what He loves. In Gen 1:31 it says “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” That is a summary statement: God loves everything He made; God loves the sky; He loves the trees; He loves the animals; He loves the minerals He put in the ground and in the sea; He loves it all. So, as we work and love ALL that God made, we find ourselves loving our neighbor, the community around us, the planet in which we live. How then is that love expressed?
As an accountant there is daily living on the job and beyond the job. God’s light can shine in how we treat people, in how we consider how money is spent by our company, in how our company gives money for the neighborhood, and on and on and on. We were indeed designed to be a light—a light that is seen by others which goes way beyond evangelism, ethics and excellence. Through the help of the Holy Spirit in a moment-by-moment way, our work should reflect God’s glory in all its manifestations.
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Dr. Robert C. Varney is Vice President of Leader-Led Movements for Global Cities, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ International.