Night Shift to the Glory of God

Maybe I’m a little bit crazy, but I think that working through the night shift (11pm-7am) is a great deal – especially if you are a Christian. And if you are unmarried, have no kids, and are young, I would argue that it is better to work the night shift than the morning (7am-3pm) or evening (3pm-11pm) shifts. The sleep schedule might be tough, but the benefits are worth it. Here are a few reasons why you should consider the night shift.

#1: The Hours Are Perfect for Evangelism
Morning shifts make you too tired after work to do much effective evangelizing during the afternoon. Likewise, shifts done in the evening take up your time just as non-Christians start to hang out at the usual social hot spots. So the usual options leave you too tired, or too busy, to engage the culture around you. It seems like either way evangelism efforts have to suffer because of work. But maybe that isn't the case: if you can work during the night shift, then things change considerably. If you get off from work at 7am, go to sleep at 8am, and then wake up at 2pm, all of a sudden you have hit the perfect window of opportunity; all of a sudden you have 9 hours of the busiest, most social hours available in your city to go out and meet people and tell them about Jesus. And you feel awake, too.

#2: Work Comes At the End of My Day
Most of us go to work and then come back home, and our entire day is defined by what happened on the job that day. We take our work fatigue back home with us. But with the night shift I see the opposite happening: work comes at the end of my day; I get to take my experience of praying, reading the Bible, talking to friends, and meditating on God’s providence in my life, and I take that to work with me. It is a totally different experience, having my work defined by my day, rather than having my day defined by my work. This simple bit of relief is the thing that enables me to show Christ more successfully to my co-workers, friends, family, and some of the random strangers that I meet on occasion. Having work come at the end of your day is a huge blessing.

#3: A Need and Appreciation for the Sabbath
On the night shift, things can be difficult: no matter how much sleep you get, your body naturally wants to go to sleep at night and stay awake during the day. So as a night shift worker you are always fighting your body's natural sleeping patterns. It isn't always that fun. I know I'm beat. So when it comes to Sunday morning I have a lot of love for the Sabbath – that day of the week when we stop trying to be productive, and try to focus on God instead. After a week or two of work, taking a Sabbath to sleep, read, pray, and hang out with our loved ones becomes an indispensable part of our weeks. We no longer have a choice in the matter because we can’t function without it. Taking the night shift makes us more aware of our need for the Sabbath. And taking a Sabbath makes us more aware of our need for God.

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Sean Rice is in the TESOL program at Briercrest Bible College, works full time in an overnight position in Caronport, SK, and prides himself on being a huge theology geek. He has been saved for almost 7 years and feels that he has been called to plant a church in Southern Ontario some time after he has completed his studies. In his spare time he writes for The Voice, hangs out with his girlfriend, and studies the works of the Rev. Matthew Henry.