Dirty Dishes

Dirty Dishes

By Brad Olson, Psy.D.,M.Div.

As I sit here, there are dishes piling up in the kitchen sink. I have been trying to ignore them all weekend. My wife gets home from a weekend of visiting her mother in a few hours, and I keep noticing the dishes. I keep thinking about the dishes. I keep finding other things to do that are more important than the dishes. I better do the dishes. Those stupid dishes.

I tried convincing my wife that there is sound psychological research that indicates I will die sooner if I have to do dishes. She doesn’t buy it. Maybe it’s a guy thing, I don’t know. You see, I am constitutionally unable to rinse a plate, bend over and move it 27” to the dishwasher tray. I know. I don’t get it either. But it is the only explanation I have for how horribly life-sucking this chore is to me.

Then I thought… This is just like working for God. I hate it.

Over the years, I have been a part of ministry teams that just didn’t fit me. I have been on staff at a para-church youth ministry. I fought to fit in. I have led ministry teams. While enjoying the people I worked with, we were largely ineffective. That felt defeating. I have held babies in a church nursery. I didn’t know what to do with them. I have been a board member for a ministry organization. I was bored to death at every meeting like I was sitting in 7th grade math. You see, the dishwashing experience has been played out many times over the years whenever I have had to serve in ministry because I was supposed to… like I was an employee working for the God-Boss.

One day, my pastor approached me and asked me to prayerfully consider joining a ministry team.

“Brad, we’re putting together a small team to help plan, develop, and create sermons and worship for Sundays. Others are good at other things, and we think you’re good at teaching, story-telling and sermon illustrations. We want to try a team approach to sermon preparation. Will you think and pray about it?”

This felt different. This sounded fun. This seemed like a good fit for me.

After seven years, I’m still not tired. Some team members have come and gone. That’s OK, I’m still a part of it and I still fit in. I sit in a meeting for 2 hours every week, and I’m not bored. It’s not like 7th grade math at all. I like the people I work with, and we are greatly effective. As a team, we are resources for our pastor, making Sunday mornings better. I am not tried, I’m energized. I don’t dread the work between meetings, I look forward to it. AND… I get to write stories, find interesting illustrations, study Scripture, and help make God’s Word come alive on Sunday mornings. I don’t have to do this, I get to do this!

This isn’t like dishes at all… This is like working with God. I love it.

It seems while working for God is a chore, working with God is enjoyable. While working for God is draining, working with God is energizing. While working for God is boring, time flies when I work with God.

Too often we are expected to fill a role serving in a ministry because we are a warm body, not because the role is an opportunity for our gifts to flourish. God calls me to use the gifts he’s given me for service, and when my abilities and passion fit with a need, much greater things happen. I come alive… His kingdom grows… and God is glorified.

Frederick Buechner said it best: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

I want to live my life working with God, using my abilities and passion to serve the way God calls me to. I want to work with God. I don’t ever want to go back to serving because I have to.

But for now, I have some dishes to do.

1 Peter 4:8-11

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.