One of the most common questions I hear Christians struggle with is how to be a "good" Christian at work. They ask questions like, "how do you keep your integrity when everyone else is benefiting from lying, cheating, and stealing." "How do you publicly align with Jesus, when it can cost you a promotion." "How do you deal with the loneliness of not fitting in with the boys/girls club." etc... The problem with these questions is that they don't address the real issue; these are not "work" questions, they're cost questions. Here's what I mean, when you become a Christian you're deciding to align your entire life, not just work, with a certain set of moral ideas, values, and rules.
These ideas, values, and rules are not specific to how you manage yourself at work, but rather how you manage your decision making as a person. So when you encounter misalignment at work, you're not dealing with a question of faith or Christianity, but a conflict of values. At that point, you have to decide the price you're prepared to pay to hold to the values and ideas you've committed to. But this is not a work-specific issue, this is an issue you will face in every aspect of your life as a believer, from your relationships, all the way down to your hobbies.
However, when it comes to work there is one danger that is unique to the work environment, and surprisingly, it's not the minefield of people, greed, and temptations you'll face; it's work itself. You see unlike most things in your life, work can almost fill every physical, psychological, and emotional need you have as a human being. It can be a source of purpose, providing you with a sense of identity and self-worth. It can be a source of provision, your path to the things you need and want. It can give you a feeling of protection, offering financial security, stability, and a sense of routine. It can be a source of participation where you find inclusion and acceptance from like-minded people. Finally, it can be a source of power, providing a feeling of status and control.
While these are all good things, they carry an incredible capacity to hinder your faith in God. We see this in Jesus' conversation with the rich young ruler. He followed all of the commandments, he was generous with his wealth and responsible with his abilities; by all accounts, he was a perfect Christian. Yet when Jesus told him to walk away from everything and follow him, the man went away sad. I can't tell you how many Christians are like the rich young ruler, relying on their work instead of the Lord, but hiding their faithlessness under the pretense of responsibility and productivity.
When you begin to understand this, you realize the real trick to working as a Christian isn't strategies for dealing with the inevitable conflicts of interest. It's realigning where you look for your purpose, provision, protection, participation, and power. It's learning that God doesn't meet our needs because we are working; we are free to work on the things he designed us to because he has promised to meet our needs.
Over the next few months, I'm going to walk through each category where work can become an idol, and share how to get realigned. We'll look at how sometimes you have to give up your identity, to discover your purpose. We'll discuss what God says about provision, and how we should prioritize its pursuit in our life. We'll explore what it means to be protected, and the common misconception that protection isn't the absence of difficulty. We'll talk about the guidelines for participation as a believer in a secular world, and how to be a light that illuminates hope, instead of a spotlight that exposes sin. Finally, we'll talk about how we're built for power, but we have to be patient through the preparation required to wield it well.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey as I explore the freedom God has in store for those who learn to rely on him; as it says in Galatians, "it was for freedom he set us free!” Imagine the incredible things we’ll do when we’re free to work on the things God made us for because we’re no longer slaves to the things he made for us.