Seeing God in Our Stories and Work

everybody gets a story nobody gets the story they want but everybody's story matters uniquely to God and you do so actually this week our story is how I Spent My Summer Vacation Nancy and I are at a secret location in Boseman Montana I don't know how secret it is and uh we're actually at a camp with um our friends Jimmy and Andrea and um I slept really late this morning you looked over at the bed and said you thought there was a lump in it [00:01:00]

Frederick wner has a wonderful line where he talks about the need to pay attention to your life because God is speaking through our actual Liv lives and as we think about our stories for this week it's learning how do I see God um present and at work in the story of this day in different areas of life and uh today it's about work yes and and Nats many gats yeah there's going to be nets all week long so just got to live with the gats [00:01:55]

when Paul's writing to the church at Corinth he talks about um uh work not just when uh in that context he was talking to Servant slaves when your Master's eyes is on you be for any of us we could apply this uh and to please people but with whole with a whole heart and reverence for the Lord whatever you do work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord and not for human Masters since you know you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward [00:02:40]

I think sometimes when you pay attention to your story you'll see gaps you'll see what in which you really are living out the gospel you'll see ways that other people are living out the gospel that speaks to you and years ago I was an emergency room nurse I really loved my job um and down in the emergency room you work with a core team of people that you know but you there's always other people coming in and out helping that you don't know [00:03:36]

I remember one night late at night in the emergency room we were working with uh one of the doctors who happened to be a Christ follower and he was just terrific every time you worked with him you felt like I'm on a team I'm part of something important um during a code if there was an appropriate time he would ask people questions about what they should do next what he should do next and it was really all in teaching [00:04:30]

he would look at people's name tags when Radiology came down or respiratory therapy was there and call People by name and just made us all feel like we were as important as he was to the outcome of this patient and that same night late at night we had a young person come in 24 year-old and didn't know for 3 or 4 hours if we were going to be sending this person up to the ICU to recover or down to the morg [00:06:18]

in fact I remember at one point during the code he just stopped and looked at us all and he said we will save her like okay okay um and when we got done and the nurses with all the equipment and the tubes took her up to the ICU and housekeeping came into clean and I was finishing charting and back in those days it was still by hand and the doctor was de briefing with the intern and he was asking him questions [00:07:12]

why do you think I ran the blood gases here why do you think I push this medicine here why did we put a chest tube in at this point and at one point he stopped and he said to the intern um did you notice the guy from housekeeping and I was done charting and I remember I just kept moving my finger like I was still writing cuz there was no way I was going to miss the next part of this conversation [00:07:47]

and you could tell by the look on the intern's face that not only had he not notied the guy he was quite confused as to why he was being asked this nonmedical question and then the doctor seeing that response repeated his question did you notice the guy from housekeeping finally the intern shook his head and the doctor said well the housekeeping Department here is really critical when we're in the middle of a code [00:08:42]

there is equipment and papers and all tubes on the floor and fluids and they come in they clean it up so that we don't trip they put things back so that we can access them when we need them they're really an important part of our team and again the intern nothing on his face and then my doctor said with a lot of city um the guy who was in here today he's probably the best on the housekeeping team his name is Carlos [00:09:24]

his wife's name is Maria they have four children they came from Mexico 3 years ago on a green card he named their children and their kids ages and then he said uh Carlos and Maria live in an apartment in Santa Ana a couple miles from here and then again with no response from the intern my doctor said I see on the schedule that we're working together next Tuesday night I have one assignment for you [00:09:39]

I want you to come prepared to tell me something about Carlos that I don't already know then he slapped him on the shoulder and said good night walked out was like what did I just see just such incredible leadership that obviously he's the doctor at the helm of all this and along with medical knowledge what he wanted to pass on to the intern was this is how you treat people and you make everybody on the team feel important [00:10:07]