ic or industrial purposes may be more
impressive than the vain babblings of the so-called "children of God"
about their souls. The trivial concerns of some religious people stand
in uncomplimentary contrast to the heroism of the researcher's devotion
to his project and to the scientist's devotion to his experiment.
Perhaps the purposes of God are more served by them than by us, although
by them His purposes may not be served consciously.

How can the life of devotion and the acts of devotion be brought
together? When employer and labor leader meet to work out the problems
of fair employment, they may do so either as a necessary part of their
business, which of course it is, or as a way of expressing their
devotion to God. God's love is concerned with justice between employer
and employee, and the employer and the labor leader participate in the
work of God in the world by their devotion to these problems. This is
both their way of being responsible businessmen and citizens, and their
way of loving God and assuming responsibility for Him. To whatever
degree they recognize this as being true, they will find satisfaction
and meaning in the offering of their effort as an act of reverence to
God, together with a private prayer for His guidance that each may be
open not only to what God is trying to do through him, but open also to
what He is trying to do through the other.

In our acts of devotion, therefore, we pray for a life of devotion in
which we may be the instruments of God's purposes in the incarnations of
His Spirit. We pray also for others, for our children, for our pupils,
for our associates, whether they be employees, peers or superiors, that
they too may be incarnations of God's Spirit and instruments for the
accomplishment of His purpose.

Acts of devotion, in the context of this kind of life of devotion,
change the whole focus of human relations and get them off their
self-centered, competitive, and alienating basis. Acts of devotion are
revitalized by being restored to a relation to the life of devotion, and
the life of devotion is given an opportunity in acts of devotion to
articulate its meaning, and to be guided and renewed in the dialogue
between God and man as expressed in worship. And the union of the acts
of devotion with the life of devotion will illumine anew for us the
meaning of daily life, and our relationship with one another. It will
improve our dialogue with one another and with God.

_Th