Work as worship

I am a first year medical student. Medicine was not quite the plan i had in mind. If I had a plan, it was never to be as busy with work as my parents. Simply my plan was not God's, but His is and will be the best, because it is His.




My first semester exams are now completed. Christmas was filled with revision and recall, revision, recall, reading, revision, recall, reading. If you'd enter my room you may well have thought i'd gone mad. You may have heard me repeat things aloud, throw a tennis ball back and forth quoting the facts and info.  I did not plan to do medicine, and i did not have a plan for how i would get through all the work. Each time i set a goal i went passed the time allocated. So i stopped planning. I was overwhelmed by the amount of information I needed to remember. The i cannot do this, i am going to fail mentality began. I got frustrated when i couldn't recall everything form the topics i had revised multiple times, and even more frustrated when i looked at how much i still had to cover.

A gift I was given shortly after I was born

This plaque hangs just above my bed and has done for years. I'd read it multiple times. The words of the verse and their order jumped out at me during exams, together with Genesis 39:23 (below). They reminded me that He alone is in control, I have a responsibility to work, to follow His way and trust Him but ultimately He acts. At the time I was reading the story of Joseph and time and time again it is emphasised that it is God who makes the plan succeed. He is repeatedly rescuing and restoring His people.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. Psalm 37:5

And whatever he [Joseph] did, the Lord made it succeed. Genesis 39:23

These are my 'verses of the moment'. They are so relevant to me. When I am feeling like I am going to fail (and it is often), these verses make my role clear. I have a responsibility to fulfill the purpose He has made me for (and for me as a medical student that will involve a lot of learning, and time in study) But i also have a responsibility to follow His way and trust Him. He promises if I do that He will act. I have to learn to work more remembering that in this working I am worshipping Him. When i remember this truth my focus improves, i remember that God brought me here, (to medicine a subject i didn't think i was smart enough for) and that with Him i can succeed, made possible because of Him. 


I sat and passed my first university exams. I can truly say the Lord made it succeed! He rescued me when i felt like breaking down and giving up. And now that I am back, at the start of a new semester, with a busier timetable and more to learn, may i keep my focus on Him and not on my worries or inabilities and work for Him and worship Him. 


How much time do we spend frustrated with what we think we cannot do? And how much time do we spend meditating on God's Word declaring that He is the one who makes a plan succeed?! If we spent more time setting this truth in our hearts maybe we would work harder with more passion, and be bolder for Him.


Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23-24