REFLECTIONS

Temporary Jobs

“Tell us how it felt to retire after all those years of teaching?” the interviewer asked. “It was not difficult at all,” Dale explained. “After all those years of teaching the Bible, I retired into my life’s work.” He went on to explain that teaching at a well known seminary had prepared him for his true passion. It was not teaching. His true passion is the study of the Bible in all its depth, and writing about what he discovered from it. His teaching actually prepared him to become a better student.

“All jobs are temporary,” our friend Philip observed to us one day. “At some time all jobs come to an end, and then one moves on to something else that will also be temporary. And so the cycle goes until God calls us home.”

There is so much truth in Philip’s observation and Dale’s experience. Birth begins a lifelong journey of learning and preparation. Learning is most often associated with formal education and diplomas, but the jobs we take upon graduation provide continuing education that serves as preparation for the next job when that one ends. And life experiences, marriage, births, accidents, victories and defeats, all contribute to the base of knowledge that prepare us for the new adventures that lie ahead.

There are takeaways from almost every job, things that serve to make us better and to prepare us for something new. The takeaways from each role add knowledge, skill, and wisdom that form the basis for future choices to be made. Those takeaways contribute to understanding and to well being. But the takeaways are only one significant aspect in the transition from one job to something else. What we leave behind is perhaps even more important. The marks we make in the roles we play are the marks we leave on the positions we once held. And if we do them anything near right, the people we worked with and the organizations we served should benefit from our having been there.

Each job we hold or role we play furthers our growth in life, but those roles also offer opportunities to leave something better than before we came. And isn’t that what the journey through life on earth is really all about? Even our time on earth is a temporary job, and it’s not in what we take away from it that is most important. It’s in what we leave behind.

And just what that will be is up to you and me.

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org

Click here for Printer Friendly Version