The Trusted Office

What kinds of work would you describe as important or trustworthy? An FBI agent protecting the president, a food inspector, or a college president? Those are all great guesses, but they’re not what I’m thinking about.

I Chronicles 9 describe the jobs of the Levites who lived in Jerusalem. Some were priests working in God’s house. Others were gatekeepers. Four special Levites kept the treasury. Others were singers. Towards the end of the chapter, we learn about a man who had a “trusted office.” His name was Mattithiah, and he “had the trusted office over the things that were baked in the pans.” He seems to have a small job that wouldn’t be worth noticing, but God put his unique job in the Bible and called it a “trusted office.”

Sometimes my jobs seem as small and unimportant as Mattithiah’s pots and pans. After all, I’m just a college student. All I do is write papers and serve people food in the cafeteria, right? How can that be a ministry to God? Mattithiah reminds me that “fulfilling the will of God” isn’t about doing some “big” ministry, but it is about being faithful to the “trusted office” God has given. That trusted office can be as small as listening to somebody who needs to talk or smiling at a sad person in the supper line.

God has a trusted office for you, too. What is it?

“Mattithiah…had the trusted office over the things that were baked in the pans.” – I Chronicles 9:31