ThursdayReflection

  29^th June 2023

Keith Welton shows

Ways God Works in You - at Work

You showed up to work today, but it feels like God didn't.
He feels remote and absent from what you do all day long.
There are temptations all around, opportunities for
cutting corners.
No one else cares 'one jot' about serving God.

And yet you believe God is sovereign over all things,
and that means sovereign over putting you in this job
in the first place.

And here you stand in a job where God feels so far away.

God created us to live for him and his glory. It is our chief calling in life.
Whatever we do, we are to do for his glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).
We don't ultimately work for our own pleasure, entertainment,
self-improvement, or gain.

We work for God and his glory, and we are to glorify him in all that we do.

When we are listless in our work. When we are beaten down and uninspired.
When we are tempted to give up. When we are tempted to reward the
abrasiveness of our boss with sub-par work, this is when we remember,

"Whatever you do, work heartily,
 as for the Lord and not for men" (Colossians 3:23).

Our hands are the instruments of our heart.
They express outwardly what we believe inwardly. Our work ought to show
we have a higher calling.
It ought to say that something greater than earthly reward motivates it.

The quality of our work should glorify God.
Dorothy Sayers said,
"No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear,
came out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth."

Our work is ultimately an offering to God (Romans 12:1).
If work is done just for promotion, recognition, or advancement, we will
always be discouraged and disappointed.

It's not just what we do, but how we do it.
Your work and how you do it affects other people.
We serve others by what we make and how we make it.

Imagine how different and enjoyable that vapid workplace might be if the
fruit of the Spirit was manifested there. Well, it starts with you.
Pray for it. Seek after it. If you think your work is too small to make a
difference, then consider the great effect of the kindness and mercy
one man in a field had on his employees and a couple poor widows
(Ruth 2:3-13).

If these things are true about your work and what you do every day,
then the change most needed isn't that of a different environment,
but a change of how we think about it.

We ought to pray to be transformed by the renewing of our minds
(Romans 12:2).
One of the greatest challenges we face is not buying into the thought
that what we see is all that is there.

When we think God is not at work or not interested in work, then we
have bought into the naturalistic worldview and not the biblical one.

The gospel moves us to have an area of influence (2 Corinthians 10:13-16).
Perhaps the reason you are in an office with people who have little
regard for God, the products they make, or the way they work is because
they struggle with a motivation to work and with direction for how to work.

Perhaps the reason there is so much pressure at work is because people
don't have anything other than work to trust in.
And perhaps you are there not to be a thermometer that reflects the
conditions, but a thermostat that adjusts the conditions.

"God is at work in you as much on Monday morning as he is
at work in you on Sunday morning. you just need to see it."
Most of us do work behind the scenes that very few people understand
or appreciate.

You have a great message to share with other people, and it might stir
them to make the most of work and life. If you need help seeing more of
what God has called you to on the job, then share that with your co-workers -
tell them what you read in the Bible and how you need help with it.

Ask others for help and invite them into your journey to be a better
worker and teammate. They might say no, but they might appreciate your
noble desire to make yourself and the workplace better.
And it just might be a profound way you see God work.

No one realizes how much goes into making the pizza, writing the program,
or shipping the product.
In a similar way, God is at work in our lives in all we do,
and sometimes we don't see it until we really press in and think about it.

When we do, we see that God is working behind the scenes in what we do,
why we do it, how we do it, and where we do it.
Realising this truth might transform your workplace experience.

Keith Welton is the lead pastor at Bridgeway Church
in Alpharetta, Georgia.
He is the author of Finding Reasons to Believe and Working for Glory.
He and his wife Amanda have four children.