A word of encouragement from Philip Yancey for those of you who wonder what difference your everyday life is making for the Kingdom of God:

I once watched a public television series based on interviews with survivors from World War II.  The soldiers recalled how they spent a particular day.  One sat in a foxhole all day; once or twice, a German tank drove by, and he shot at it.  Others played cards and frittered away the time.  A few got involved in furious firefights.  Mostly, the day passed like any other day for an infantryman on the front. Later, they learned they had just participated in one of the largest, most decisive engagements of the war, the Battle of the Bulge.  It did not feel decisive to any of them at the time, because none had the big picture of what was happening elsewhere.

Great victories are won when ordinary people execute their assigned tasks. . .I sometimes wish the Gospel writers had included details about Jesus’ life before he turned to ministry. For most of his adult life he worked as a village carpenter.  Did he ever question the value of the time he was spending on such repetitious tasks?