by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Hear me out. A blanket fort. Only instead of blankets, puff pastry. Slumber party—and in the morning? Turnovers!

I’d work on that fort. I came up with this idea while pondering whether there is anything in the world that would not be better with puff pastry on top of it. Or under it. Or wrapped all around it.

Turnovers have to be the best puff pastry application ever. A turnover is like a pie…that you don’t have to share. All wrapped up in flakey layers. How brilliant. Incidentally, I can eat an impressive number of turnovers. That’s not what’s meant by a high turnover rate, is it? I guess that’s one more pastry point to ponder.

Sometimes I probably do a little too much pondering. But I also do a lot of doing. Sometimes I also dough a lot of doughing.

On a less flakey note, whatever I do, I genuinely want to do it well. Paul said, “Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people” (Colossians 3:23 CSB).

Of course, Paul was only talking about responsibilities and assignments that are easy as pie. Oh no, wait. He wasn’t. He was referring to the fun tasks, the mundane tasks, the tough tasks, the cinchy task, the awful tasks, the thankless tasks, and probably even the flakey tasks. All the tasks. In Ephesians 6:7, he says again, “Serve with a good attitude, as to the Lord and not to people” (CSB).

How do we do that? How can we blanket the work we do with a good attitude?

The secret is in the “for” in Colossians 3:23. It’s in not working enthusiastically and with positivity only because the Lord is watching—though He certainly is. Or because people are watching. But positivity and enthusiasm happen organically as we remember, understand, and really internalize the fact that we’re doing the work for Him. That “for” radically changes the way we view every undertaking. It changes the way we do the work, giving it more energy, more heart.Giving it more party than slumber. Because there’s a whole new joy in heart-working.

As we work for Him “from the heart,” our work can become sort of like a prayer, a praise—even like worship. Every big job and every little job—the glorious and the inglorious—each is made sweeter by this kind of doing. Sweet as pie and sweeter still. Working for the Lord out of love for Him can dignify even an undignified assignment.

There’s a related assignment regarding related assignments in Philippians 2:14-16. “Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world, by holding firm to the word of life” (CSB).

Our assignment is to work shiny—not so much flakey. It’s a truly brilliant thought. Doing our doing without the grumbling causes us to shine like stars. By working from a heart full of love for Jesus, as a bonus, we can win the opportunity to shine for Him, to hold onto and hold out “the word of life” and share the message of Christ with those who desperately need Him.

Let’s do it. Let’s work shiny for Him. Brighter than stars. Bigger than the sky. Better than pie. Brighter, bigger, better than any pie in the sky.

Rhonda Rhea is a humor columnist for lots of great magazines, including HomeLife, Leading Hearts, The Pathway and more. She is the author of 10 nonfiction books, including How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take to Change a Person? and coauthors fiction with her daughter, Kaley Faith Rhea. She and her daughters host the TV show, That’s My Mom, for Christian Television Network’s KNLJ. Rhonda enjoys traveling the country speaking at all kinds of conferences and events. She and her pastor/hubs have five grown children and live in the St. Louis area.