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The Best Employee Ever…

By July 26, 2015August 30th, 2022Devotional

This past week I spent more than 25 hours driving through Indiana and Illinois. It was just one of those weeks that I had to work in a variety of places and by Thursday evening I was tired of being behind the wheel. But Janet had travelled to Chicago earlier in the week and I promised that I would join her after completing my business on Friday.

The day started out as a regular day. I got in the car and headed north, only to run into roadblocks north of our home that necessitated my heading south, losing about 45 minutes of time that I had already been in the car. As annoyed as I was, it was to be a leisurely day heading to the windy city and so I decided to stop along the way and see my brother in Morris, Illinois. As a surgeon, he had been tied up in the operating room all morning and wasn’t going to be available to see me until mid-afternoon – so I decided to get off the main drags and travel the back roads of the midwest.

As I was approaching one county, I recalled from my Facebook friends that one of my grade school friends lived near where I was heading. Mind you, I haven’t seen him since early high school but I couldn’t resist the urge to see if I could track him down. I thought I had an idea where he worked and as luck would have it, I passed a large sign with an arrow pointing to exactly the place that I thought I may find him. I pulled off the road and followed the signs to the administration building and went in. I was a little hesitant as I have never done this kind of thing before and I didn’t want to be thought of as a stalker.

I went in several offices, mentioning the name of the person I was looking for. Finally, I ran across three women who all told me that they knew my childhood friend – but that he retired a little while ago and was no longer in the building. Here I was – so close and yet so far away. As I was getting ready to leave, they offered to provide his home address to me – also on the way to my destination farther north. And I was heading out the door, one of the ladies said, “You must have had some great grammar school class – he was the best employee we ever had…” I kind of swelled up with a little pride. I didn’t find him yesterday – either at his work or driving past his home a little while later. I did leave my card in the front door and hope that he will call me. I have stayed in touch with some of my classmates and it seems like everyone has had a  rather fulfilling life. Sure, some of us have ended up doing different things than we thought we would do.

And there are some people who have been married and for one reason or another it didn’t work out. Life has taken its twists and turns and yet most of us have survived – at least to this point in time. The verse for this evening is from Col. 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

My encouragement this evening is that just like my childhood friend, whatever you do, do it to the best of your ability. My prayer is that God will honor your work and the world will be a better place because you contributed to the betterment of mankind in the process. Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…

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