Living your faith at work is really about restructuring your life

Every now and then when you go to church, you are likely to get a sermon on the importance of praying every day or of making regular donations to charity. Those are good things to do all by themselves, but what those sermons are really urging you to do is to get your life in sufficient order that you can pray daily, or so that you can make regular donations to charity.

In order to pray every day, you have to plan for it. You have to establish a time, and then make sure you are ready every day at that time. That may mean getting to bed at a reasonable time the night before, or it may mean saying "no" to opportunities for recreation or other forms of fun. In order to make regular donations to charity, a person has to budget. A person has to carefully consider his earnings against his expenses in order to be able to set aside some for recurring donations. So while there is benefit to praying and giving, the greater benefit may be the lifestyle and habits they force you to adopt.

It is the same thing when this blog urges you to "bring your faith to work." Of course there are benefits to bringing your faith to work, but the real benefit may be the adjustments you have to make to your life that will make it easier to bring your faith to work. In order to really succeed at bringing your faith to work, you have to think ahead, seriously consider the challenges and opportunities you face at work, and plan for making the most of those challenges and opportunities.

Consider the structural changes you might make in your life to make it easier for you to live your faith at work:

First, when looking for work, you might look for a job with a company that offers a working environment consistent with your faith and values. For example, a Christian who wants to work in retail might choose a company that does not rely on overly sexualized advertising to sell its products.

Second, no matter where you work, you might think really hard about how to serve your colleagues and customers. Loving others means serving them. Take time to think about what that might mean in your situation. How do you do your own job well while helping those around you?

And third, develop your faith enough so that you can talk about it comfortably with others, even those who believe differently than you do, or perhaps don't believe at all. Knowing your faith at that level requires a lot of work -- study, prayer and contemplation.

Bringing your faith to work is really more of a lifestyle than it is a singular activity. It involves carefully considering each step on your career path, coming up with great ways to serve those around you, and developing your faith life at home.  

Comments

[Bradley J. Moore]

"Loving others means serving them" We talk so much at work about serving the customers, little do we mention the word "love". Yet that's exactly what we mean, and it's God's intention.