Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. – Romans 12:2 (NLT).
Last week I went to the movie, Secretariat. It’s a story about the thoroughbred racehorse who won the Triple Crown in 1973–the first to be done in 25 years with record breaking speeds that are still unbeaten today. In the movie, Penny Chenery, the horse’s owner, loses her father to Alzheimer’s and eventually a stroke. While training and preparing her horse, Big Red (Secretariat) to race, she tells her investor, “Work is good for grief.”
When I speak for grief groups, I highlight the importance of doing something. Work is good for grief. Work is good for mental health. Or how eighty-year-old Lloyd, a nursing home resident where I first worked in Human Resources, used to tell me every morning as he walked around delivering newspapers to other residents, “Work is good for a person.”
God can bring out the best in you through the work you do. Good and pleasing and perfect. He wants to take our ordinary frustrations, everyday battles, chaos-filled life and help us create something better.
Today is your day to work at something worthwhile. Something you find good and pleasing and perfect. Something that is ultimately good for you.
