Every job has its challenges. Right now I’ve finished a round of live shows and I’ve taken up some casual teaching. It’s a juggle I need to keep doing to sustain enough income. Casual teaching is often a bit like turning up midway through someone else’s puzzle and being asked to finish it without all the pieces. You can easily come home wondering ‘did I really do a good job or not? Did I finish enough of the puzzle?’
Come to think of it, teaching can feel a bit like that whether you are full time or casual. Great lessons prepared for hours can fall flat without any clear reason why. Underprepared ones can sometimes come out of the hand like you’re a magician. So how do you know if you’ve had a good day?
Ministry is not exempt either. Christian ministry still has to be done under the sun. Incredible labours can go into planning and holding missions often with little results. Then when we aren’t even trying, someone falls over converted. So how do you know if you’ve had a good day?
It’s a question in search of wisdom. If you can’t guarantee results in this life, then what for certain can you get out of it? Solomon posed the same question in the opening words of Ecclesiastes: ‘What can be gained from all one’s labour under the sun?’ In other words, ‘What’s a good day?’ His answer, a good day is to ‘eat, drink and enjoy your work under the sun’ (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26).
Each day, I do a very simple ‘work’ that I enjoy immensely. It’s something I can control a little more than a day at the office. Something I can do and say, “Aha! You nailed it Stephen!” What is it? Making a sensational coffee. Making a coffee gives me something very tangible every day that I can do and enjoy. I enjoy the experience so much I turned it into a show called Barista Banter (www.baristabanter.com.au).
[caption id="attachment_228" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="An afterwork double shot latte in the winter sun"]
[/caption]
Sometimes we don’t get to see the final results of our work or it’s just not tangible like a coffee. But this verse teaches us that reward from work is to be sought in the doing, not the end result. I think I love making a coffee as much as drinking it. But also as a casual teacher, the Bible encourages me to find reward in knowing that I held the ship together and kept it afloat until the absent teacher returned. That’s how I can know if I had a good day or not. That’s my reward from my work as a casual teacher.
