We’re back to work here at Prison Fellowship after a nice, long break. The rest was much needed by all of us, I’m sure. As I pulled up to my desk this morning, I was glad for the sticky notes I have taped on my monitor which remind me what I’m about. One says simply, “I am here to serve with joy.” The other says, “Christians have a duty to develop and use whatever gifts they may have without worrying what the future may bring.”

I find it’s so easy to slip into the worldly mentality of work as drudgery. Sure, work can be drudgery at times. But work is also a gift. It is a gift I have been given and it is a gift I get to give back to the Lord. I pray that as you find yourselves back at your respective callings this week, you will fight the worldly impulse to despise work, but instead will turn every act, no matter how small, into an opportunity to serve God and worship Him through the work of your hands—no matter how seemingly “secular” the work is that you find yourself called to do. Apart from that which is inherently sinful, there is no task, no matter how seemingly insignificant or rote, that cannot be transformed into worship when the heart is inclined to give that act unto God as a spiritual act of worship. I’m praying we’ll have that mindset today and in the days to come in 2010.