I’ve been learning lately about how we honor the gifts and callings we’ve been given. And I’ve been thinking about working the field God has given me with diligence and excellence. I’m learning to wait for him and to listen for his voice to speak to me.
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“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.” Luke 2:7-8
A Christmas story in June? Not exactly.
I recently heard a speaker give a devotional where he talked about the importance of “tending your field” by which he meant taking ownership and being responsible for the area that you have been given to watch over or to tend. And I’ve been thinking a lot lately about diligence and excellence in working as unto the Lord, both at work and in our personal lives.
Both of these thought were rumbling around in my head and in my spirit when this passage in Luke 2 came to mind.
It says the shepherds were abiding in their field and tending their flocks. They were doing their job well. They were protecting and overseeing the animals for which they were responsible. They weren’t sleeping through the night. They weren’t off in town at the local pub or back home curled up next to their wife in a warm bed.
When suddenly, “an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.'”
It was in that field, where they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, that the angel met them and delivered the word of the Lord. It was there that they saw the fearful sights and received the joyous news that a savior had been born in Bethlehem.
The lesson for me was that it’s in my field that the Lord will speak to me. It’s when I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing that God meets me with his word for me. It’s me being a good dad and a loving husband. It’s me being a faithful employee. It’s me being diligent with my gifts and callings.
And everyone’s field is different. We’re all given different tasks to do and different gifts with which to do them. For you it might be as you are at home with your kids, or working your nine to five, or the overnight shift, or tutoring kids in the summer, or volunteering at church, or you doing whatever it is where God has placed you.
Tending your field is just you doing what God has given you to do. It’s us abiding in our fields and tending our flocks. That’s where God meets us. It’s there that we hear his voice. So tend your field. Abide. Do work as unto the Lord with diligence and excellence. And cherish the gifts he has given you. Because it’s there that the word of the Lord will come.