For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10
“In his business in the kitchen (to which he had naturally a great aversion), having accustomed himself to do everything there for the love of God, and with prayer, upon all occasions, for His grace to do his work well, he had found everything easy, during the fifteen years that he had been employed there. That he was very well pleased with the post he was now in; but that he was as ready to quit that as the former, since he was always pleasing himself in every condition, by doing little things for the love of God.”
Brother Lawrence (c. 1614-1691) in The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of Holy Life (Grand Rapids: CCEL) 5.
Our walk through Paul’s letters brings us to Ephesians. Here we realized we are saved by grace for a purpose: to do good works that He has prepared in advance for us to do. Let’s dig deeper into what those good works look like most of the time.
Brother Lawrence would say that it is doing little acts for the love of God. He found the grace to do this by stepping back from his work seven times to pray. This made it easier. It’s not that the work changed, but his perspective changed in the process.
To understand his setting, he worked in the kitchen in a monastery for 15 years. He didn’t really care for the work, but realized in the process, that it mattered and that it could bless others when done for the love of God.
How might your work make a generous contribution in the lives of those around you today by doing little things for the love of God?