My first boss (Bruce) was more of a mentor and friend than a boss. He taught me volumes about wildlife and the outdoors. Bruce had a work ethic like nobody else I have ever seen. When he worked it was real, and when he hunted it was as intense as when he worked. Bruce however, was not a believer in Christ. He admitted there must be a God; he just didn’t believe in the afterlife, Christ’s story, or that the Bible is any more than a history book (with errors).
Bruce was homeless at 12, after his parents divorced. He never had a nickel given to him and worked sweat labor for everything he had. He never graduated High School (it interfered with his work schedule) and is now probably the wealthiest man I know.
He didn’t know how to deal with my becoming a Christian in 1979. He was puzzled at why I would not participate in our annual frog-gigging night, canoeing a big swamp harvesting buckets of bullfrogs. It was illegal the way we did it, so I told him I had an obligation to follow the law as a Christian.
Being raised in a Christian home, I knew scriptures well. But they came alive to me when I committed my life to Christ. One scripture that jumped off the page to me was Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might..” I eagerly shared it with Bruce as a way of sharing a scripture he would surely agree with. He just said he didn’t need a bible to tell him that and asked why I had not listened to him saying the same thing for years.
The last three years I worked for Bruce, our stalemate over how Christianity affected the way I lived became an ever-widening divide. Bruce knew how I had lived before Christ and how I lived after.
It made him angry. However, when his dad died (30 years after I quit working for him), he asked me to speak at the funeral.
Think About it
I have seen what the application of “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” does for those who don’t even know Christ. It is as real as the sunrise.
If you are called to serve your church, do it with all your might.