It was time to work. The yard and stone walls surrounding our house needed to be cleared of brush and fallen trees and piles of dead leaves. The job was huge, far greater than I could do alone, and my husband was at the office.

“Come help me clear brush,” I called to my older children, who were in their rooms, out of sight.

Instead of hurrying feet, my request was met with silence.

“Come on guys, I’m serious,” I called again. “I need your help.”

Nothing.

If I went outside, maybe they would follow. So I pulled on my rubber gardening boots and work gloves and stepped outside into the crisp spring afternoon. My youngest children, ages 6 and 2, were riding bicycles up and down the dirt driveway.

“Come help Mommy.” I pulled the garden cart from the shed. “We’re going to pick up sticks.”

The littlest one instantly jumped off his wooden bike and pattered down the driveway after the rattling cart, and his brother followed. But pulling dead wood from overgrown grass and briars quickly grew boring, and the older one soon trotted off to check the mail, returning only after much coaxing.

For much of the afternoon, it was just the three of us. I pulled the larger limbs and trees. They pulled the smaller ones. The jagged mounds of brush at the edge of the driveway grew larger and the grass clearer, but I knew the work would go faster if we were all working together.

The Gospel of John tells of a man so sick that he couldn’t walk and how Jesus healed him on the Sabbath, the day of rest, when no one was supposed to work — not even miracles. The religious leaders criticized Jesus for breaking Sabbath laws. “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working,” Christ responded (John 5:17).

Scripture says much about work. From the beginning of creation, God gave people a job: tend the garden. It says that workers should be paid fairly; should work to the best of their ability; and without complaining. When it comes to the tremendous work of sharing the news that Christ came to forgive sins and to set us free from death, sickness, and every form of darkness, it compares humanity to a vineyard in which, “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few,” Luke 10:2.

And here is what I thought, piling up all those dead sticks, while my father is working, I also want to be working. When he calls, I want to pull on my boots and gloves. I want fast feet, knowing that God promises a reward for those who respond.

“Why didn’t you come when I called?” I later asked my children, none too gently.

“We didn’t hear you,” they said.

You see, they were simply too far to hear my voice. Am I, I wondered, too far to hear God’s voice? To hear, we must draw near, to linger, to free ourselves from distractions. Or we will miss not only the work, but also the reward.

MEADOW RUE MERRILL is a Mid-coast Maine writer who shares about God in her everyday life through “Faith Notes.” For more, go to www.meadowrue.com where you can follow her on Twitter or Facebook.