If Your Job Feels Meaningless

Do you ever wonder if what you do actually matters to God?

We’re not talking about church stuff. We mean the job you show up for every day. The dishes you keep washing. The meetings you lead. The texts you respond to. The side hustle, the spreadsheets, the service industry shifts. The caretaking. The freelancing. The early mornings and late nights that feel “unspiritual.”

Does God see that? Does He care? 

Yes. He absolutely does.

There’s a word in ancient Jewish tradition, Kavanah, that means living with a holy intention. It’s the practice of doing even the smallest task as an act of worship. Not because the task is flashy or “spiritual,” but because your heart is turned toward God while doing it.

This is how God designed us to live from the very beginning. In Genesis, God places Adam and Eve in a garden, not just to enjoy it, but to tend it, to work it, to shape something beautiful, good, and meaningful out of what they’ve been given.

Work wasn’t punishment. It was purpose.

And that’s still true. But we forget. Somewhere along the way, we started dividing our lives into sacred and secular, spiritual and ordinary. We give God Sunday morning and think the rest of the week is just life.

But worship isn’t something you clock into and out of. Worship is a way of life. Worship is how you show up. It’s the posture of your heart in the middle of what feels like routine.

You don’t lose connection with God when you’re stuck in traffic or folding laundry or sitting in yet another Zoom call. He’s with you there. The way you do those things—your presence, your patience, your excellence—that’s worship too.

Brother Lawrence, a monk who spent his life cooking in a monastery kitchen, once said, “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God.”¹

It's not the size of what you do. It’s the love you bring into it.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said something similar: “If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures... so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”²

That is kavanah. That is holy, embodied, everyday worship.

And you see it in the life of Joseph. Before he led Egypt or interpreted dreams for kings, he was working in someone else’s house. He was managing a prison. Forgotten. Underrated. Unseen by most—but not by God.

“The Lord was with Joseph... and caused all that he did to succeed.” (Genesis 39:2-3)

Joseph didn’t wait to feel important before he was faithful. He didn’t hold back his best until a bigger platform showed up. He worked with God’s presence in the middle of the ordinary.

Here’s the part I don’t want you to miss: God didn’t give Joseph grace for the palace while he was still in the pit. He gave him grace for where he was. And Joseph didn’t waste it trying to live someone else’s story.

The same is true for you.

Maybe you feel stuck. Or small. Or like you’re made for more than what your day-to-day looks like. But the invitation isn’t to escape. It’s to be faithful. To do what’s in front of you with kavanah—holy, grounded, God-aware intention.

Because God is already there. In the dishes. In the inbox. In the shift. In the mess. In the meeting. And when you bring your whole heart into that space, it becomes sacred ground.

Prayer

God, thank You that You are with me not just in sacred spaces, but in everyday places. Help me approach my work with holy intention. Whether I’m leading, creating, cleaning, or caring, let it all be done for Your glory. Remind me that nothing is wasted when it’s done in love. Give me grace for my assignment, not someone else’s. Help me be faithful where I am. Amen.

Reflection

This week, start small. Wake up and say, God, I give You this day. Help me bring love into what I do. Before your next task, whether big or boring, pause and invite Him into it. That’s how worship starts.

Not with noise. But with awareness. With presence. With kavanah.

¹Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, translated by John J. Delaney. New York: Image Books, 1977.

²Martin Luther King Jr., “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?” speech, Barratt Junior High School, Philadelphia, PA, October 26, 1967.