The work God gives us to do

My husband has a new job that is quite different from his previous job. The biggest difference is the amount of extra hours he has to work, long into the evening and weekends sometimes, without compensation. Now he is grateful to be working, as most of this year he was living under the cloud of pending, then actual, unemployment. But the job that we consider a gift of God has come with a cost greater than what was expected at the beginning. The temptation is to look for something else, but if we have learned nothing else in the past 3 years we have learned to bear it. The work that God gives us to do, which can be physical labor, prayer, encouraging others, maintaining family relationships, even chemotherapy, serves more than a single purpose. While we are about the work, He is about using the work to shape and form us, grow us, discipline and teach us. We find ourselves at a loss, often, of energy, ideas, courage, kindness, patience. He is there to show those things to us. The work that God gives us to do is service ultimately to Him, for Him. We do the work He gives us to do, and we do it to the best of our ability, because it is His gift to us, and ours to Him.