Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Monday, November 20, 2017

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."¹

While what I am about to say will not apply in every country, but where I live if we want to find work when times are tough, we need to be willing to work at whatever work we can get. To give government handouts to people who are able to work but are not willing to work at whatever work is available, is irresponsibility on the part of the government which, in turn, is keeping people irresponsible and immature. Furthermore, mothers who keep having babies so they can live on government support is also a travesty of justice. And people in prison should be given work to do and pay their own way. As God's Word says, "Whoever does not work should not eat."²

When overseas students write to ask me for financial support to help them to come to America to study, I share my experience with them.

When I came to the U.S. from Australia to study for Christian work, I had no means of supportâ€"no student allowance, no scholarship, no family support, and no government help. Survival meant working part-time during the school year and full-time during the summers to put myself through college.

I took any job I could get even though I was a technical college graduate and a skilled tradesman. I scrubbed floors and walls, weekly cleaned a black soot-filled coal-burning boiler that heated an entire factory; I crawled through huge factory equipment on my back to clean it. In the summers I drove a city passenger bus in Chicago (got lost in it a couple of times) in the morning and evening rush hour shifts, painted houses in the middle of the day, and worked at a large city church as a janitor at nights and weekendsâ€"seven days a week!

No job was ever too menial, but I was never out of work and all my bills were paid. I always thanked God for his provision of work. I am sure that this did as much to train me for my life's work as did my formal education. I never asked God to give me money … what I prayed for was that he would help me find work … and I never went hungry.

So, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might" and in due course "you will reap if you faint not!"

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me to keep on being faithful in the little things because they are as important as the big things. And help me always to work with a positive attitude and a grateful heart. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NIV).
2. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (NLT).

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