Discovering God @ Work (part 2)

I thought I’d done so well, accepting God’s will against my own, and going to the workplace He wanted me, not the one I thought was best. But apparently, as I was to learn in lesson 2 of God’s remedial teaching, I didn’t exactly have it worked out. I described in my last piece how I accepted what to me seemed clearly the inferior of two job opportunities. God preferred me to be CIO of a small commercial mortgage lender, as against defining how technology could be used worldwide to further the mission and impact of one of the largest poverty relief and community development organizations in the world. Point one for me – I obeyed. Points two, three and more against me – I obeyed kicking and screaming. The fact is, I just didn’t get it. I could certainly rationalize that my new employer was contributing to society in the way that finance provides the fuel on which the economy depends. But I couldn’t get my mind around how helping this already excessively rich country get richer was part of God’s Kingdom.

It took my wise wife to show me that I hadn’t really accepted God’s will at all. I was like the boy who, upon being told repeatedly to sit down at the dinner table, finally sat but said “I’m sitting down on the outside, but I’m still standing on the inside”. Our attitude to God’s calling may appear on the outside to be submissive and obedient, but if we’re still “standing up on the inside” then we’re simply not letting God have His way with us. Now my wife knows better than to tell me I’ve got my theology and spiritual motivations all wrong. Instead she simply pointed out that I was coming home every day and complaining about the stress, the difficulties of the job, how I disliked the work, and so on. Eventually I got the point.

This can be one of our hardest challenges as Christians in the workplace. Once I realized how wrong my attitude was I knew I needed help. I talked to a couple of close friends, and a group of men I meet with regularly, and shared the issue with them. That immediately created an accountability group for me. And I confessed to God what I had been doing. My prayer had to become that God would show me how He was in this company and its people, and how He was using me (and them) in His Kingdom work. Things started to fall into place – a realization of cultural change occurring, opportunities to listen to and pray for people in need, the beginnings of a difference being made in how the company operated. I’ll share more of those later. This was just a beginning of my understanding how God works in the workplace, the beginning of a journey. I hope to share more over the coming months.