It would be easy to get into conversations about “what counts as a great work.” I walked that line closely enough yesterday. (See “What makes a work great?”) However, here are some examples of what seem to me to be “great works.”

• Don and Janet spent fifty years living in southeast Asia and learning a language and translating the Bible into that language. For perspective, imagine typing out the whole Bible. Now, imagine doing it in another language. That you don’t know when you start. That hasn’t spent years being shaped by the images in the Bible.
• Parents who show up and care about and care for their kids, who look at the opportunity as a gift from God, who give up what they would like to do so the future is better equipped.
• Donna wanted to help women study the Bible together in her church but she hated being in front. So she guides the process that reviews curriculum, recruits leaders, prepares promotional materials, invites women, and develops a schedule that serves nearly 200 women in three seasons a year in four different days and times.  It’s all volunteer: she pays with lost sleep. But she loves it.
• Ken was a contractor. He went overseas to work on building a house for someone. It changed his life. Pretty soon, being a contractor was what he did to make money to go build houses and churches in other places. Debbie does a similar thing, working here to fund her habit of going and helping in third world countries.
• Nayda watched the local food bank closing. So she volunteered to help. Now she runs it as a volunteer, feeding 40-50 families a month.

I don’t know the great work you are on. But there is one. I’m cheering for you while you look.

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Coming Monday: Why Nehemiah’s work wasn’t so great.