I waited outside the church to greet people after giving my presentation on hurricane relief programs. Several in the crowd came to shake my hand. Some asked questions. An older lady approached: taking my hand in hers, she said, “Keep doing the Lord’s work, sweetheart.” She smiled, patted my arm and kept walking toward the parking lot. 

People often tell me I’m doing “God’s work.” 

They mean it with the best of intentions and deepest sincerity, but underneath it, I often hear something else: Your work is more meaningful, more important, than mine. You are doing the REAL work. I am not.

And that, put simply, is absolute baloney. 

I work for a Christian humanitarian aid organization. It means I pack up my life into two checked bags and a guitar case, get on a plane, and fly to countries reeling from a natural disaster. Because my job takes me across oceans, people often assume my work is innately more kingdom-building. The truth: someone who has never driven outside the city limits of their hometown might be doing “God’s work” far better than I. Which begs the question: what is the work of God? 

God’s Work: What Is It? 

In John 6 after Jesus feeds the five thousand, some of the crowd follows him across the Sea of Galilee. When they reach him, Jesus sees right into their hearts, chastising them for coming just to get more free food. He tells them, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” (v. 27) 

Then they ask him: “What must we do to do the works God requires?” (v. 28) 

And Jesus replies: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (v. 29)

You say: Is it really that simple? 

And Jesus answers, Yes. “My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (v. 40) 

God’s work is to believe in Jesus, to receive him—the bread of life—and share him with others, just as he told the Jews in John 6. 

God’s Work: What We All Do 

In his book The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer writes about “the sacrament of living.” As Christians, we live between two worlds: the spiritual and the physical, or the sacred and the secular. It can often feel like we’re living divided lives. Sometimes, we’re in the sacred half: praying, fasting, singing hymns, going to Sunday services and weekly Bible study. But most of the time we’re in the secular half: eating, sleeping, working, going to school, making grilled cheese, mowing the lawn, changing diapers, and paying bills. We often do these things “apologizing to God” for not spending more time being spiritual, Tozer notes. 

But Jesus is “our perfect example: He knew no divided life.” 

Tozer suggests that every act of life can be as sacred as praying or going to church. He writes, “Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there.” Living in the truth that we belong to God, that He has saved us and never rejects us, will unify the sacred and the secular in our lives, melding the spiritual with the physical. 

But for myself, it’s not enough to type this truth out, or for you to read it on your computer screen: we must practice it daily. We must remember it while we eat breakfast. We have to meditate on it while sitting in traffic on our morning commute. We have to talk it over with God while we type a memo and pray in our cubicle. We have to recall it to our minds every time we clean the bathroom or scrape food off that one not-non-stick frying pan. If we allow ourselves to welcome this truth constantly, we won’t just know it—we will start to experience it and live by it. 

Eugene Peterson put it this way in The Message: “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering…fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.” - Romans 12:1-2 

God created YOU with certain gifts, abilities and idiosyncrasies that He fully intends to use, so don’t waste time apologizing for not doing “His work.” Don’t make an idol of “meaningful work.” ALL work is meaningful if done to please God.

Tozer wrote, “It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular; it is why he does it.” You may never see the results of all that you do—the conversations you have, the dinners you deliver, the kids you teach, the rooms you clean, the lawns you mow, the kindness you show, the grace you give—but if done for the Lord, He is no less pleased with it. 

Whether you are a children’s book editor, an engine assembly expert, a food truck chef, an occupational therapist, a 7th grader, an investment banker, a foster mom, or a retiree—do whatever you do “as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:23-24). 

Whatever you do and wherever you do it, do it for God’s glory (1 Cor. 10:31). 

Right there, my friend, is your mission field. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Claire Zasso was born and raised in California with many books and mountain air. Currently, she works for a Christian international relief organization, supporting hurricane recovery programs. She loves coffee, scuba diving, leading worship with her guitar, hiking in the Sierra Nevadas, jamming to classic rock, and showing others the freedom found in knowing Jesus.