Six Ways God’s at Work in You — At Work

Part 2

Article byKeith Welton

 

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 wit about serving God. Conversations are all banal. And yet you believe God is sovereign over all things, and that means sovereign over putting you in this job in the first place.
You grow doubtful about yourself and wonder what it must be like for businessmen who are giants in the faith, and who sail through meetings and private work carried along by the joy of serving God. And here you stand in a job where God feels so far away.
In reality, the workforce is not only how God works through you; it is a place where God works inside of you, conforming you to the image of Christ. He may feel distant, but he’s not. He is using the difficulties and pressures in your job right now to focus you in at least six areas.

3. God is using your workplace to focus your hands.

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. God is worthy of our doing great things for him each and every day as an act of worship and praise. Tune out the distractions and obstacles, focus on God, and do quality work only he can appropriately reward.

4. God is using your workplace to focus your love.

It’s not just what we do, but how we do it. Your work and how you do it affects other people. Some produce great products, but in the process they run all over others. Our work for the glory of God ought to serve those around us. We serve others by what we make and how we make it. Our work ought to be empowered by the Spirit and filled with the fruit of the Spirit: the fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).
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).