Victoria is an apprentice hairdresser. She’s 19 and she’s been in the job just over a month. It’s a busy salon so there’s always something to do and it’s almost always got to be done quickly. She’s enjoying it – the people are upbeat, friendly – but she’s been feeling the pressure. Three weeks into the job, and her vicar prays for her, commissions her into the job. She’s been more at peace since then. I ask her:

‘So, what difference does being a Christian make to the way you wash someone’s hair?’

I wonder what you might say if someone asked you that question about what you do every day. I wonder what you might say if you were a hairdresser.

Victoria didn’t miss a beat:

‘I pray for them as I massage in the conditioner.’

Victoria’s praying is an invisible gift to her clients – soothing conditioner for the soul, not just the hair. Still, behind her prayers lie a whole set of beliefs.

Victoria believes that her daily context in a hairdressing salon is important to God. And why shouldn’t she? Is it not the case that ‘the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it’ (Psalm 24:1)?

She believes that the actual work she does is important to God, that the work itself can be done in a distinctive way: the actual massaging in of the conditioner, kneading it into the scalp, learning what level of pressure is both effective and relaxing for each individual uniquely created in the image of God. No doubt Paul, the Apostle and tentmaker who wrote to slaves in Colossae and encouraged them to do ‘whatever’ they did as ‘working for the Lord’, would have been cheering her on (Colossians 3:23–24).

Victoria believes that God is alive and can move in a hairdressing salon. And why not? This is the God who intervened in a fiery furnace in Babylon to rescue Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3:8–30), the God who intervened on a lake in Galilee to still a raging storm (Mark 4:35–41), who intervened outside a tomb in Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1–45).

She believes that God wants to bless her clients, and that she can be part of that. After all, is this not the God who sends rain to the righteous and unrighteous (Matthew 5:45), who is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9), whose essence is love (1 John 4:8), and who sends his people to love their neighbour as themselves (Matthew 22:39)?

Victoria believes in the power of prayer and in God’s freedom to respond in his own way and in his own time. She doesn’t need to see the results of those prayers. Indeed, this side of heaven, for the most part she probably won’t. But it’s still worth praying – God will be listening to her.

***

I wonder what strikes you about that ‘little’ story. What convictions shape Victoria’s day and her actions? What biblical connections do you see?

Is there some ‘little thing’ you do in a way that consciously involves God?

‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.’

COLOSSIANS 3:23–24

—

Mark Greene
Mission Champion, LICC