Remaining Faithful in the Unglamorous

“Aren't you wasting the capacity you have given me by putting me in this job?” I prayed silently as I washed the large, paned windows between the sanctuary and the foyer of a church I didn't attend. This was a moment of raw, Psalm-like honesty with God.

I had worked for five years to earn my BA in Music Education and had dreams of further study, teaching, writing, and speaking. Now, I was spending forty hours per week cleaning businesses, churches, homes, and a dog-training center. I was not doing the job or ministry that would end up in the celebrate-our-alumni-for-their-difference-making letter—I was hand-mopping hardwood church platforms and cleaning dog hair from the floor around toilets. I finally asked why with this heartfelt, desperate question.

In May 2025, I walked across the stage and received my MA after years of work, having been employed as a church worship leader and self-employed as a piano instructor. Although not prestigious, these were steps toward my dream. Yet, it wasn’t everything my earlier window-washing self may have assumed.

I learned more deeply in the decade between these moments that faithfulness in the unglamorous is part of every God-focused life, no matter if one’s role seems to be primarily unnoticed effort or recognized accomplishment. It is the nature of Christ-emulating service, and in fact, doing the unglamorous with faithful effort and integrity is the load-bearing structure for every ministry and all recognized, God-honoring accomplishments.

The Faithfulness Paul Praises

In these verses, Paul mentions names of men who served Christ and ministered with him—men with differing stories and roles. Tychicus accompanied Paul on his third missionary journey (Acts 20:4), was sent by Paul to Crete (Titus 3:12) and Ephesus (2 Timothy 4:12), and apparently served as the carrier for this letter to the Colossians, likely tasked by Paul with reading it aloud, providing interpretation, and additional commentary.1

Onesimus had been a slave in Colossae, escaped, came to Christ, became trusted help to Paul, and was returning to his master, Philemon, on this trip with a letter to his master of Paul's witness to God’s work in him (Philemon vv. 8-16). Both of these men are described as faithful. Mark is likely John Mark, who had abandoned Paul’s first missionary journey, resulting in Paul’s refusal to travel with him again
(Acts 15:37-40), yet had been faithful enough through time to be helpful to Paul (2 Timothy 4:11) and now would be welcomed as one of Paul’s fellow workers if he came to Colossae.

These names have been heard or read by Christians throughout two millennia, and millions of Christians know their stories of faithfulness. They are recognized for their kingdom work with Paul—an accomplishment in Christianity that involved repetitive, unglamorous service, travel under conditions my 21st-century first-world mind doesn’t grasp, bearing the burdens and questions of local congregations, visiting the prison, and comforting the imprisoned.

This passage also mentions faithful people whose names are not known, the recipients of the letter who Paul says in 1:2-4 are faithful in Christ, loving all their brothers and sisters in Him. All of these tasks, including the reality of day-to-day loving others, were ordinary or even difficult, but were made extraordinary and recognizable because they were done faithfully in the name of Christ.

Your Faithful Role—It Matters

What are the ordinary, unglamorous tasks and roles in your life right now? What has God led you to consistently put in your schedule that seems insignificant or goes unnoticed by others?

Perhaps you mow lawns, shovel snow, serve food, build cabinets, repair plumbing, handle IT tasks, or deliver mail. Perhaps you are an engineer who designs and tests, a factory worker who builds parts one at a time, a trucker who transports, or a retail worker who stocks and sells. Maybe you are a millionaire who works hard through the daily grind with integrity to have this capacity for generosity.

Maybe you are a rising musician whose career is built on thousands of unseen moments of struggle to improve and careful striving for purity. Perhaps you are a stay-at-home mom who trains, cleans, plays, organizes, schedules, cooks, and serves, over and over, all day, every day, with limited sleep. Maybe you get to church early to start the coffee or sign up for a dish every time there is a meal train.

Maybe you can only give $10 for every special offering, and you do even though you wish you could do more. Maybe you clean up the trash in the sanctuary after church. Maybe you are unable to leave your home, but make phone calls, send cards, and pray for people. Perhaps you are a minister or missionary who expected more highlights and less administrative tasks, more people coming to Christ and less interpersonal disagreements.

Do Unseen Good in His Name

Whatever your tasks, your roles, your schedule, your perceived successes and failures, continue to be faithful to all God has led you to do. Lean into relationship with Him for grace to do all for God's glory (1 Corinthians 10:31) and to walk in the good works he has for you (Ephesians 2:10). The unglamorous, the mundane, the ordinary are good works when done in His name.

Looking back, I realize that the cleaning job taught me to value people I might otherwise have overlooked—to be grateful for every effort, big and small. No matter the accomplishments we achieve or the jobs we have, God-honoring work is grounded in the steady, unseen moments of integrity and loving service. Let's be faithful.

1 David W. Pao, Colossians and Philemon, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 308–309.