the marketplace

A young man told me today of his work-related stress.

It was not so much the job, but environmental. He has a Christian family-- small children and a wonderful wife--and loves his church family.

But every week he drives a significant distance to work to an environment where he feels like a stranger, an alien.

He would really like to find a job where he was in full-time vocational Christian service. He has a heart for serving people, and loves being around his Christian brothers.

But the marketplace is hard. It takes discipline to stay focused on God. It is challenging to look for opportunities to share his faith. And there are days when he goes home and says, "I dropped the ball today...I missed an opportunity".

From the safe confines of my pastoral office--insulated from the rest of the world--I reminded him that his sphere of influence IS his ministry and his children ARE his first priority. A positrion of vocational Christian service may await him, but until then, he is where God has placed him, and that, with purpose.

The marketplace comes to me. I generally am in my office studying or counseling, visiting at a hospital or in a home, ministering at the church. At that level I feel I have it easier than most. There are only isolated circumstances in which i feel I am a stranger, an alien.

So the real issue in focus here for my young friend is the old "in" the world but not "of" the world enigma and how that translates into his daily life.

My prayer is that he will make the marketplace a ministry center, a place where his life touched and changed by the grace of God, indelibly impacts the lives of those around him.

And, that when he goes home to his family, he will see his ministry to them as a spiritual leader, a high calling.

He may not be able to totally escape the enironmental stress, but, hopefully, his sense of divine placement and purpose will ennoble his day.