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Have you ever considered how many people God utilizes to provide the meals that you enjoy daily? Some are obvious, such as farmers, ranchers, truck drivers, food processors, and grocers. Others are less obvious, such as all of the people who were involved in building the tractor that the farmer uses to plow his field. Or think of all of the people who were involved in the construction of the roads that the trucks drove upon to bring the food to the grocery store.
God provides for your physical needs in this world on a daily basis, using countless people working in their various vocations. Luther referred to these vocations as “masks of God.” On the surface, you see ordinary people working in their vocations as teachers, farmers, police officers, cooks, doctors, etc. But beneath the “masks” of these vocations, God is at work to serve and provide for you.
To examine the other side of the coin, I invite you to take a moment and consider the many different vocations (“masks”) God has given to you. If you are employed outside the home, you might first think of that as your vocation. It is one of your vocations, but there are many other vocations to which God has called you. Your additional vocations might include spouse, parent, grandparent, child, brother or sister, friend, citizen, employer, employee, etc. Every day, God is at work serving and providing for many people through you and your various vocations.
After thinking about all of these different vocations you have, consider how God works through you and your vocations to serve various people and provide for His creation. Doesn’t that change the way you think about the daily and sometimes monotonous routine of life? Doesn’t that provide a new and joy-filled perspective in the morning when the alarm clock sounds?
It is God who first loved you and set you apart at Baptism to be His child. Having been freed from the guilt of your sin through the blood of Jesus, you are now free to serve God and your neighbor.
As Jesus told the lawyer who asked Him to identify the greatest commandment, " 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself' "(Matthew 22:37-39).
May God empower and bless you as you, a redeemed Child of God, love and serve your neighbor, using the “masks” He provides!
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