September 01, 2026

Change The Why Not The Work

Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God's sake which we commonly do for our own sake.

Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris, spent decades working in the monastery kitchen, a job he confessed he naturally disliked. He had once been a soldier, wounded in battle and left with a permanent limp, and later served as a footman before entering religious life. Rather than waiting for a different post or better circumstances, he learned to bring a new intention to the same daily chores, turning peeling vegetables and washing pots into acts of love for God. His insight speaks directly to anyone who believes they need a new job or new circumstances to find meaning, when the real change available today is in the heart behind the work already at hand.