If there is one thankless job in the whole world, it’s got to be cleaning out the cat box.
I have thought that many times, but today was a little different. I was, again, not feeling well, and my nose noticed that the litter box needed to be cleaned. You know how your sense of smell decides to become really sensitive when you get queasy?
Cleaning the litter box is not my favorite job in the first place, but I really wasn’t looking forward it. But I considered what would happen if the box gets too full (Tilly gets finicky as the result of a stinky box), along with the way it smelled already, and weighed those things against my desire not to do it. And it was no contest. The ick had to go.
So when I leaned over to clean out the box, feeling a little bit sorry for myself, this is what my scoop unearthed.
(Warning, litter box picture coming up.)
When I saw that heart shape, the thought flashed through my mind that Tilly was thanking me for cleaning out his box. He always shows great interest in the process, and continues to be interested after I’m done. He tends to jump in and inspect before he goes, and after, and sometimes in between!
But my next thought was laughing at myself for being so fanciful. After all, how on earth could a cat deliberately create any shape in the box? (And how would he know what a heart shape means?) But the image of that heart stayed with me, and I began to think about all the other “thankless” jobs there are in the world.
What is a “thankless job?” I would define it as a job that no one particularly wants to do, and possibly no one really wants done to them, but that has to be done for health, cleanliness, security, etc. An example of a thankless job would be something like giving shots, emptying bedpans, changing adult diapers in a nursing home, giving sponge baths to an invalid, cleaning up bodily fluids in the emergency room or the police station, etc.
No one wants to do these jobs, but they absolutely have to be done. But who will say “thank you” to the people that do them? Usually not their bosses, who are ultimately large hospital systems or municipalities. Not the clients or patients they serve, because in many cases, they don’t even know what’s happening. In fact, they may not even what them to be done. It takes a special kind of person to do these kinds of jobs; it takes someone with a big heart, and a strong stomach.
The time may come when you are called upon to do one of those “thankless jobs.”
My mom did. I remember her telling me that when her father lay dying of colon cancer, she moved in to care for him. Her mother couldn’t stand to change her father’s diapers. We have people now who will take on those tasks, but back then, there was no Hospice. Doing the job is bad enough, but when you have to do it for the man you have spent a lifetime making love to, well, I can understand why Grandma couldn’t do it. It would have permanently changed the way she remembered him.
But how hard it must have been for my mom, especially at first! But when you love someone, and are only thinking of them, it’s amazing what you can do. When my mom remembered caring for her father, her face became tender. She would tell me the things she said to comforted him, and speak of how he loved to just hold her hand. Near the end, he was in terrible pain, and couldn’t help but cry. On his last day (though neither of them knew it), when she was unable to distract him from his pain, she turned on the radio.
One of his favorite hymns came on. I believe it was, “Oh love, that will not let me go.”
He closed his eyes, finally comforted, and drifted off. She slipped out to let him rest, and when she came back, he was gone.
She felt so blessed to be the one to care for him! She was there with him all the way to the very end, and knew that she had done everything possible to ease his suffering. I know she was comforting him the way she hoped one day, she would be comforted. No wants to be indebted to others in that situation, but it can happen to any one of us, and when someone cares for you with kindness and respect, that means everything.
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23-4 ESV
When we do “thankless jobs” for others, we are to give it our all, this passage says, as if we were actually doing it for Jesus Christ. And in a way, we are.
Jesus talks about this concept in his parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus says that when he comes back in all of his glory, with all of his holy angels, and takes his place on His throne, then all the nations of the world will be gathered before him. And He will separate them as a shepherd divides his sheep from his goats: Sheep on the right, and goats on the left.
To the “sheep,” he speaks kindly, rewarding them!
“Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me meat; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in: Naked, you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came unto me.”
In the parable, the people likened to the “sheep” are confused. “When did we see you like this, Lord?”
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brothers, you have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:31 – 40)
Notice that the jobs Jesus is commending them for doing are all those “thankless jobs” we have been discussing. Who will thank you for visiting someone in the hospital, or in prison? But those “thankless jobs” have an incredible reward. And what’s more, the first part implies that God knew all along what jobs you were going to do, and that you would be rewarded for your service. And it says it plainer here:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
So all this was prepared long before we were born. It’s amazing to think about, isn’t it?
But what if we resist the urging of the Spirit to do the “thankless jobs?”
The ones who are like the “goats” have a very different end, and are condemned precisely for NOT doing what the sheep were rewarded for doing. The “goats” didn’t visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and so forth. And so, Jesus essentially says to them, since you didn’t care for me, you will face the punishment prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matthew 25:41 – 46)
This is the principle: When we serve others, even if it is only to give them a cup of cold water in his name, God will reward us. (Matthew 10:42) And if we don’t, we must take warning that God sees our “sins of omission” too, and will respond accordingly.
“Therefore, to him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17)
People might talk about you if you do a “thankless job.” Some might thank you overly much, making an extra big deal about it, to make it seem as if that is what you wanted. Some folks will make fun of you for doing the “grunt” jobs. And others might pile on criticism, accusing you of doing nice things to get noticed. Some may accuse you of displaying “works righteousness,” as if doing good is somehow a sin. Others may ignore you all together, thinking that those who do menial tasks are beneath notice.
But ignore all of that. You don’t even have to defend yourself. Doing good when you won’t be rewarded confronts people with their own behavior (for how can they not evaluate themselves?), and they will react from the state of their own hearts.
When people gossip about you, that is a form of persecution, and is part of what Jesus Christ endured here on earth. He was accused of working for the devil because he healed people and cast out demons. He was eventually put to death for the blasphemy of telling the truth about who he IS: The Son of God.
But he said, “Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you: that you may be the children of your Father in heaven. . .” Matthew 6:44-45a)
Do we earn salvation through our works? No, we do not have the power, and must rely on the gift of God through Jesus. And when we are bought by the blood of Jesus, we are not our own. We must continue the work that Jesus started, for we are Christ’s ambassadors!
So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” (2 Corinthians 5:20 NLT)
When we work here on earth, we are the “hands and feet” of Jesus. We follow him by doing the kinds of things he was doing when he was in human form, here on earth: We will reach out to the people who haven’t heard and understood, and we will meet them where they are so that they will understand the truth.
We will feed people who need to be fed, and we will explain that it comes from Jesus. We will heal people in whatever way we can. Maybe they just need to talk; so, we listen. Do they need clothes? Shoes? Give them what they need, without a thought for yourself, for God will meet your needs when you are busy meeting the needs of others. He promises he will.
God provides for us when we obey his command to serve others.
We have to give generously of our time, or our energy, or our money or our resources, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. It all belongs to God, anyway. You don’t know what it means to feel the prompting of the Spirit? It means that you listen to that little urge within you that tells you to do something good. You might call it your conscience, (and the Spirit will convict you of sin), but will also point out the way to go.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.” (John 16:13) NLT
Watch out for your chance to do good, my friends! Look for the gift of “thankless jobs.”
The Fullers Four 