We're only suppsed to do the work

I took a writing assignment in college to create the text of our school catalog.

"But it's so pointless!" I told my coworker. "How's this fulfilling my life purpose?
This doesn't share the gospel, or tell anyone how to live rightly."

I remember she rolled her eyes at that.

I never understood why people so often took jobs just for the money. As an idealistic college student, I wanted everything I did to mean something for eternity and have an impact for God’s kingdom. I wrote the text for the catalog, but I didn’t give it my best work. I was too busy imagining the powerful mediums I’d soon be using to connect with nonbelievers through writing. I imagined books that would get inside people’s minds and rearrange the furniture, articles that would allow God’s truth to finally break through a reader’s resistance, and strong sentences that would melt hearts.

How overconfident.

God needed to run the show, not me. I was responsible for the legwork, which was whatever work He gave me to do. He was responsible for the results.
When I graduated college and was positive that it was God’s plan for me to take a job offer in the pharmaceutical industry, I began questioning.

God, are you sure? This isn’t my strength. Did I even pass science in school?

I had to stop myself and realize God only wanted my obedience. There could be a coworker there who would need something specific that God would be able to give through me. Or maybe there was a coworker that God wanted to use to bless me. Perhaps this work would bring about any number of circumstances that fit perfectly into His plans. It isn’t my job to decide, from my limited human view, the best use of my time and talents.

After five years in the corporate pharmaceutical industry, I still don’t completely understand my purpose here. But it’s sure comforting to know that God does. My only responsibility is to continue in the work that God has given me, and to leave the results to Him.