When we were kids, most of us wanted to be accountants, doctors, engineers or lawyers. But life is what it is! Fast forward to college days, the hard truth hits us, we all can’t be those things we dreamed of as kids.

As final year students in our various departments we knew that it wasn’t really about what we studied, so, we made new projections – we’d love to work at Total (not the filling stations but the real thing), Chevron or Schlumberger. We wanted the job with fat pay cheques and with other perks like official car, fully furnished official residence and a full month all-expense paid trip to any mega city of choice attached. Somewhere along the line, the big bang occurs yet again.

Stark reality, for many the dream jobs are not yet within reach so they are just patching up with the first organisation that says yes to their applications.

Many are not living the lives of their dreams (even yours sincerely hasn’t gotten the Schlumberger invite). Many who are in this situation tend to treat the jobs they have with levity. Our energies are directed towards getting a slot at the dream place. Nice as that may seem here is my thought on what we can do while still waiting for that giant leap to fulfilment.

Firstly, we need to be grateful to God for what we have. Let’s not be like the man who constantly complained that he had no shoes but only discovered that God was good to him when he saw the man without legs. Never forget that a bird at hand is worth thousands in the bush.

Secondly, and the reason why I’m writing this – let’s see where we are as a preparatory ground for where we are going. The fact that you don’t have that dream job yet doesn’t mean it has eluded you eternally. And, once we see what we have as a token from God, then it behoves on us to treat that job as God would love us handle it.

So, here is the question – how does God want us to handle our jobs? A look through scriptures shows that God wants us to handle our jobs as stewards. Those serving in God’s vineyard are not the only ones qualified to be called stewards. You are also a steward when you are serving in another man’s business. In Ephesians 6:5-7 we see the Apostle Paul imploring us to go about our work like service to the Lord.
“With good will doing SERVICE, as to the Lord, and not to men” (verse 7).

In our offices, we are required to render service(s), meaning that we are stewards where we are. If we accept the fact that we are stewards then we should work as one. Stewards work faithfully. The Apostle Paul tells us that faithfulness is the hallmark of stewards.
“Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” 1 Corinthians 4:2

I have come to see that faithfulness to one job may be the ultimate secret to getting another. Most employers will contact your last place of work before hiring you and one of the things they want to know is how you handled the last job because that will give them an inkling of how you will treat this new one. People of all creeds and colours desire men that show faithfulness. So, while you are still in that organisation where you are patching, waiting for the next move, work faithfully. The wisest mortal that ever lived had this to say,
“WHATSOEVER thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might…” Ecclesiastes 9:10.
Give what you are doing your best, there is no need to reserve your best till when the dream job comes because what you do now is what will recommend you for that dream job.

Yet there are others who aren’t giving their best, not because they haven’t gotten the dream job, but just because they believe they can’t give their best while working for other people. This set of people reserve their best for when they start their own businesses. Its good they know that faithfulness in another man’s business is a sure way to moving God to give you your own business, see what Jesus had to say on this,
“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much…. And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?” Luke 16:10, 12

For me, one of the best stewards I have ever seen is Bishop David Abioye, the Vice President of LFC (Winners’ Chapel). I see him as a man who is contented being Number 2 when his subordinates have all opted to doing their own thing. His contentment is definitely not borne out of weakness, or fear of starting on his own, but based on spiritual instruction. He shared the secret of his exceptional stewardship with the congregation when he relayed that God told him that,
“If you are faithful in another man’s thing, I will give you your own thing.”

Monday is already upon us, why not step out tomorrow with a resolve to give your best now, just like a true steward. Living by the recipe prescribed by Martin Luther King Jr won’t be a bad way to handle whatever assignment we are handling while waiting for “our own thing” or that dream job,
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep street so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say ‘here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”