March 23, 2026 · 7 min read
Soul Food - Part 4 : Work as Worship
By Raiden DeLuca
Most of us spend more time working than doing almost anything else. More than we sleep. More than we spend with the people we love. More than we spend in church or in prayer.
So what we believe about work matters — a lot.
For a long time after coming to Christ I wrestled with a quiet tension. I was on fire for God, genuinely transformed, and suddenly everything felt like it should be about Him. Church, community, Scripture, prayer — those felt sacred. Work felt like something I had to get through so I could get back to the things that actually mattered.
What I did not understand yet was that the distinction I was making was not one God makes.
What the Bible Says About Work
The verse that changed everything for me is Colossians 3:23–24.
“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.” — Colossians 3:23–24 (NASB 1995)
Whatever you do. Not whatever ministry you do. Not whatever church activity you do. Whatever you do.
Paul wrote this to servants — people doing the most unglamorous, thankless work imaginable. And he told them to do it heartily, as for the Lord. Not for the approval of the person above them. Not for recognition or reward. For God. Because the actual audience of their work was not their master. It was Christ.
That reframe changes everything. If the audience of your work is God, then there is no such thing as meaningless work. There is no such thing as work that is beneath you. There is no such thing as work that does not matter. It all matters because He is watching all of it.
Paul reinforces this in 1 Corinthians 10:31:
“Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” — 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NASB 1995)
All of it. Eating. Drinking. Whatever. This is not a verse about church activities. It is a verse about Tuesday afternoon. About the email you are writing, the problem you are solving, the task nobody asked you to do but you did anyway. All of it has the potential to be an act of worship — or not — depending entirely on who you are doing it for.
And Romans 12:1 broadens it even further:
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” — Romans 12:1 (NASB 1995)
Your body. Your daily life. Your presence and effort in the world. That is your spiritual service of worship. Not just Sunday. Not just when you have your Bible open. The whole thing.
My Story
I have worked at Black Box VR for almost my entire adult life. I started in QA. Just testing, finding bugs, doing the work nobody particularly wants to do. Over time I saw needs that were not being met and started filling them. I taught myself to write Python scripts to analyze data. Then I kept going. Eventually I became the backend tech lead.
None of that happened because someone handed it to me. It happened because I kept seeing problems and choosing to solve them — often quietly, often without being asked.
The clearest example of this is our backend. For years, every developer on the team complained about it. It was old, brittle, unreliable, and nobody wanted to touch it. So I started refactoring it in my free time. Nobody assigned it to me. There was no ticket, no deadline, no recognition waiting on the other side. I just saw something that needed to be done and started doing it — a little at a time, consistently, over a long stretch.
Today the entire company runs on that refactored backend. Fewer bugs. More reliability. A system that actually serves the people building on top of it.
I did not know at the time that I was doing anything particularly spiritual. But looking back, that is exactly what work as worship looks like. You do the thing in front of you thoroughly and well, not because someone is watching, but because that is the standard God holds you to regardless of whether anyone notices.
God saw it. That was enough.
What This Has Changed for Me
After coming to Christ I genuinely struggled with the idea that my secular work was less valuable than ministry. I felt the pull to do something that felt more explicitly for God — something with a church label on it, something that looked like kingdom work from the outside.
Colossians 3:23 freed me from that.
The work God placed me in is not a placeholder until I find something more spiritual. It is the assignment. He put me specifically at this company, in this role, at this time. And that means this is where my worship happens from nine to five.
But it goes further than that. Black Box VR makes people more physically fit. That might sound simple, but the implications are not. Physical fitness clears the mind. A clearer mind is more capable of stillness, of hearing, of being present with God. People who come into our gym often come in without purpose and leave with one. Purpose is a precursor to the gospel. A person who finds meaning and community and a reason to show up can be more open to the deeper questions — and to the One who answers them.
I am in that gym five times a week. I know the members. I hear their stories. And I know that the work I do on the backend — the reliability, the features, the systems that keep it all running — directly contributes to what those people experience. That is not abstract ministry. That is real impact on real people, and it honors God whether it ever carries a church label or not.
Even beyond that — I represent Christ in how I do the work. The quality of my effort, the way I treat people, the integrity I bring to problems nobody is watching me solve. That is evangelism too. Maybe the quietest kind, but real.
The Reframe That Changes Everything
Work as worship versus work for your boss is a gentle reframe with enormous consequences.
When you work for your boss, your effort is calibrated to what they can see. You work harder when they are watching. You cut corners when they are not. Your motivation is external — approval, promotion, not getting in trouble. And when the boss is difficult, or the work is tedious, or the recognition never comes, the whole thing feels hollow.
When you work for God, none of that changes the equation. He sees everything. The work done in private and the work done in public are the same to Him. The task that nobody notices and the task that gets you promoted are evaluated by the same standard. Thoroughness, integrity, diligence — these become acts of worship rather than strategies for getting ahead.
This also means that work you cannot yet see the purpose of still has one. God placed you where you are intentionally. The season that feels like it is going nowhere is not wasted if you are doing it unto Him. He sees what you cannot see. He is working with a longer timeline than you are. Your faithfulness now is planting something whose fruit you may not harvest for years.
Do the work in front of you well. Do it as if God is the one evaluating it — because He is.
Work Is One of the Highest Forms of Worship
We spend more of our lives working than almost anything else. And God knew that when He designed human beings — work was part of the original creation, before the fall, before sin entered the picture. It was always meant to be part of how we participate in what He is doing in the world.
That means work is not a necessary evil to be endured. It is not something to escape or minimize. It is a primary arena where you either live out your faith or you do not. Where you either reflect Christ or you do not. Where you either honor God or you do not.
The question is not whether your job is sacred enough. The question is whether you are bringing a sacred posture to it.
“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.” — Colossians 3:23 (NASB 1995)
That is the whole thing. Do it for Him. All of it. Every day.
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