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What is your office?
Sometimes it isn’t easy to be a mom or a dad, an employee, a boss, a teacher, or a student. We often have to make tough decisions in order to carry out the tasks we’ve taken on or been assigned. In thinking about the different roles we each fulfill, I’ve often been drawn to the concept of an “office.” But not the kind of office with a desk and a computer!—office as defined as “a duty or function assigned to or assumed by someone” (American Heritage Dictionary).
Mary Baker Eddy writes about the office of porter in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, when she describes standing “porter at the door of thought.” She goes on to ask the reader to perform his or her office as porter and “shut out … unhealthy thoughts and fears” (p. 392). She also describes God as having different offices: “Life, Truth, and Love … represent a trinity in unity, three in one,—the same in essence, though multiform in office: God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter” (Science and Health, p. 331).
Although the Bible doesn’t use the term “office,” it certainly has many references to one’s appointed function or duty. Moses was a leader who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. David was elevated to the position of king. Mary became the mother of Jesus. Jesus was appointed by God to reveal the Christ, preaching the gospel, healing the sick, and raising the dead. Each of these individuals demonstrated that by relying on God and expressing the qualities of their offices, they were successful in their endeavors.
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About the author
Nancy Bachmann is a Christian Science practitioner living in Lake Barrington, Illinois.
