The Gift

I was in Fargo last week, attending United Methodist Annual Conference.  Now that I’m back, I’ve had a few people ask me how I liked it.

           I’m never sure how to answer that.  I enjoy seeing people, some of whom I rarely if ever see otherwise.  And some of the teaching sessions were good.  And I understand the importance of the business that gets done.  But I really don’t enjoy annual conference very much.  It takes me away from Wanda, and it takes me away from doing work that I love.  I know we have to have it, and I know I have to go, but I’ve come to look at it more as a necessary evil than something I’m going to really enjoy.

                         

That’s a sharp contrast to my time as a lawyer.  I didn’t go to the bar conventions very much, but I was city attorney for Wessington Springs and I always went to the municipal league meetings.  I looked forward to those.  I really enjoyed them. 

As I look back on it, though, I didn’t enjoy the meetings for the meetings themselves.  I didn’t even enjoy them for the people.  I looked forward to the meetings because they got me away from my work for three days.  It was a chance to get away from a job I really didn’t like all that much.

 And as I thought about that, I suddenly realized, not for the first time by any means, how fortunate and blessed I am to have work that I love so much.  I don’t look forward to time away from my job.  I look at time away from my job as a nuisance.  I love what I do.  I don’t want to get away from it.  I want to be here to do it.  And I want to be with the people I do it with.  That includes Wanda, of course, but it also includes the people of all of our churches.  It includes people from other churches, or even from no church, as well. 

I do have to be away sometimes, but please don’t think I’m doing it because I want to get away.  I love everything I do (well, I don’t love filling out reports for the conference, but pretty much everything else).  I want nothing more out of life than to be able to do it with Wanda and with the other wonderful people of our parish for a long time to come.

Ecclesiastes 3:13 says, that to “eat and drink and find satisfaction in all our toil—that is the gift of God.”  I am completely feeling that gift.  I have been blessed by God in many ways, and while I’m sure I don’t appreciate that as much as I should, I do appreciate it.  May you feel that same gift and that same blessing.