The conversation was a lively one as some fifty ministry assistants discussed both the frustrations and joys of their particular calling. One expressed the feelings of many when she said with a wry smile, “What we need to know is how to be happy in our work even when we feel more like firefighters than secretaries.”

• Most of us have heard at one time or another that there are two ways to be happy: getting what you want, and wanting what you’ve got. This certainly applies in the church office. There, as elsewhere, choosing the second way is more realistic.

• Mary may want an organized boss, the most updated equipment, a full-time assistant, and a substantial raise. She may have tried to bring about all four, even making progress in some instances. Now, she can choose to be unhappy because she doesn’t have all she wants or she can choose to be happy by wanting what she has.

• Let’s be clear. Wanting what you have doesn’t mean settling for whatever someone else decides your life will be. It doesn’t mean toughing out disrespect or abuse and labeling it as okay. It doesn’t mean ignoring ways to bring about change or improvement anywhere and everywhere you can.

• Wanting what you have does mean accepting things and people as they are, not allowing them to cause you unhappiness because they are not how you want them to be. It means being resolved to find satisfaction in every moment, whether that moment brings something to enjoy and remember or something to change and forget. It means not letting a less-than-perfect world spoil your sense of contentment and well-being.

• Ministry assistants get a lot of what they want from their job—theirs is meaningful service. Still, many identify firefighting exercises affecting their ability to enjoy their work to the fullest. If they got what they want—

• staff members would be better time managers
• adequate funds would be available for necessities
• the assistant’s input would be valued
• communication with staff and members would be better

• Your own list may be different. The point is, we all have work situations we would like improved. We can focus on negatives, complain about them, and let them cause us unhappiness. Or, we can see them as only part of the picture, a part we may or may not be able to change.

• In the final analysis, it is not what goes on around you that determines how much you enjoy your work. It is how you respond to the circumstances. You can be happy in your work, not because it always gives you all you want but because you want what it gives—challenges, ways to make a difference in people’s lives, a path of service in God’s work, opportunities to grow, a means to make a living, whatever is important to you.

• Choose to be happy. Even if you have to grab that fire hose now and then!