I’m taking off this week because it’s my birthday, but I didn’t just want to leave you hanging!  So here are some thoughts from last Sunday that I wrote down.  It may be a little jumbled because I was overwhelmed with all of it, so bear with me!  🙂

I wrote out some thoughts in my checking in post.  I just had to get these thoughts out into the universe, you know?  It made them more real if I wrote them out, and making them public just made them more…permanent.

Well, I challenged myself to be more transparent, and God took me up on that challenge.  Sunday, there were several thoughts during church and bible class that just got to my core.  It’s like God is saying, “ok, you want to know where you could use some growth?  Here you go.  Now, grow.”

It’s all about reading that same scripture over and over again and getting nothing, and then that one day when it all becomes real.  Matthew 20:1-16 did that for me today.  It’s about the vineyard owner who hires people at different parts of the day and still pays them all the same wage, which infuriates the people who worked 12 hours that day, understandably.

Guys, I have a confession.  I am totally guilty of this pride of the 12 hour day laborer.

If you aren’t sure what I do, I work from home for a law firm helping people get their disability.  It has it’s pros and cons, but let’s face it, it has a lot more pros than it does cons.  I’m head of my department which means that I can basically decide what to work on each day, and I set my schedule accordingly.  I still have to be present and available from 8 to 5 (I can’t go get my nails done or do my grocery shopping or anything), but I get to decide for the most part what I do during those hours (work-related, of course).

I have always prided myself in knowing that I take the job very seriously, and that it’s not about the money (I don’t make as much as I might working the same job in an office here).  I do it for the clients who are amazing and become my friends, even for the short time I know them.  I do it for my boss who is so supportive and more like family to me than most people.  When I started working here, I put in long hours, and really pushed myself up to where I am now.  And I had no idea how much the pride monster in me had grown.

I am guilty of judging other people in their job.  They don’t even have to be people at my particular work.  I look at people who take more days off than I do, and I feel injustice, especially if they haven’t worked as long at their jobs than I have at my own.  I felt justified in my anger because I felt like I had to pay my dues and they didn’t.  It’s almost the mirror image of Matthew 20.

Instead of focusing on what other people should or shouldn’t do, I should be asking myself what I can do to make my work ethic better.  I am in no way perfect.  Immediately, as I listened to this parable, my thoughts went to my own work habits, and how they could be a whole lot better in some areas.  I thought of the blunders I’ve made (some were kinda big) that were met with understanding and forgiveness by my bosses.  I’m still working here, though I am not perfect.  I’m valued, nonetheless.

I think that’s the whole point, no matter what aspect of life it is.  Sometimes, I spend so much time valuing other people’s efforts, or let’s be honest, finding flaws in other people to make myself feel less like an imperfect human, instead of working on my heart to be a better example of Christ.