Work blahs, but should that be the case?
Last week I celebrated my two year anniversary of employment at UPS. It's been an interesting two years, and lately, I have come to the point where I am counting down how many months I have until I am finished with seminary and able to quit in order to move on to something else; better, and more in line with my degree and expectations of calling.
Because of this anticipation and impatience, I have been experiencing a sense of lethargy and dread when the clock gets closer to 4:00pm, because that means it's almost time to leave for work. I must say that my attitude has been awful concerning work and I have lost the concept that everything I do is to glorify God. It's the chief end of man, but sometimes I don't want to glorify God in my work-I just want to get it over with and do a good enough job that no one will bother me about my performance afterward.
I don't think that's the right attitude. Sure, I make excuses about being so busy in life and that's why I really don't feel like I can enjoy UPS, or I'm so eager to quit, but really I know that my perspective is wrong. Part of me sees this job as menial employment because I am better educated than most of my managers and have more non-UPS experience in management/professional business employment than many of the people who are my bosses, etc. So what? That shouldn't make me look at my job like it's something insignificant. Not because of what I do, but because of who I represent.
I think I've let myself lose that perspective lately.
It's time to get it back.
Below is a great article from www.byfaithonline.com and it really helped me when I read it yesterday. (I am posting the entire article because I could not get the link to work)
Everyday Life
Making Dog Food for the Glory of God
By Dick Doster
If you’ve been to a PCA church more than a few times you know by heart that the goal of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
But for Christians in business the Chief End of Man is often wishful thinking or a passing thought. Most Christians, including presumably, those in our denomination, spend eight, 10, maybe 12 hours a day at the office. On a good week we take Saturday off, but with email, cell phones, and the Internet, work is always close by. In fact, a number of surveys over the past few years report that Christians spend 60 to 80 percent of their waking hours at work in the secular world—selling, meeting, planning, and composing memos and emails. And when asked, “what’s the point of all that effort?” their answers suggest that the chief end of most men is “to make money.” Few Christians—and “few” is a generous estimate—believe their work in the world brings glory to God. And fewer still believe that selling, planning, and meeting are ideal ways to find His pleasure.
When and how then, laboring in a thorn-infested world, do God’s people do the things that eternally matter?
There may be clues in the secular press. The business magazine, Fast Company, recently identified the Fast Fifty—peak performers, the magazine says—who executed great ideas and made last year a good one.
Jeffrey Ansell, the 45-year-old president of the Iams (pet food) Company, is first on the list. He is, the magazine reports, an innovative leader who has worked hard to improve pets’ lives. Last year Ansell’s company developed a high-end food formulated to develop smarter, more trainable puppies. It created a pourable gravy to make dry food more appealing. And Ansell extended his company’s brand into veterinary services, developing two medical-imaging centers that allow vets to limit exploratory surgery on dogs and cats.
There’s no evidence in the article that Ansell’s a Christian, but if he were—if a believer had his job—could manufacturing and marketing dog food bring glory to God? And could it deepen his enjoyment of the Father?
Seems unlikely. And the idea probably strikes most as silly, if not heretical.
But what if…? What if a Christian intentionally climbs the corporate ladder, not because he covets money or power, but because he’s convinced that he is a redeemed descendant of Adam who has been given dominion over the earth and the animals? Every morning he pulls into the parking lot reminding himself that, “God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds. ... And God made the beasts of the earth. ... And God saw that it was good.’” What if he delights in God, joyfully working 60 hours a week making dog food because he actually believes that he’s a regent of the King who, “… out of the ground … formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them … ?” What if he can’t wait to get to work on Monday morning, not because he loves the power, but because he’s eager to research, explore, and make new discoveries that help us tend to creatures that God created, pronounced “good,” and entrusted to our care?
What if he goes to work intent on gaining market share, expanding distribution, and improving profit margins—not as ends, but as means—as critical tasks needed for the company to expand service, develop more innovative products, and hire more smart people? What if he works harder than his competitors, not simply to win, but to take a more expansive role in God’s renewing plan? He doesn’t know what life with the animals was like before the Fall, but he does know, when Christ consummates His plan, that, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. … The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD … ”(Isaiah 11:6-9). With Isaiah’s prophecy vaguely in mind maybe, when he saw photos of labrador retrievers searching the rubble at the World Trade Center, he was intrigued by their perseverance and wondered more about why God made them. Or perhaps when he saw German shepherds at the airport sniffing for smuggled drugs or hidden bombs he was fascinated by the fact that God, for some reason, gave them a sense of smell that is a hundred times greater than ours. He might have visited his mother in a nursing home and been touched by the way golden retrievers comfort widows who’ve been left all alone. Or, more likely, he simply delights at the way his own sloppy mutts lick his face every night when he comes home.
Whatever the case, when he goes to work because he’s the caretaker of God’s creation, when he labors as a regent of the King who is reconciling all things to Himself—he performs work that eternally matters.
D. Cole Frates is on the Fast Company list. Frates, 36, is the president of Hydrogen Car Company (HCC) in Los Angeles. He created HCC, he told the magazine, “because there was nothing we could buy that we wanted to drive—a fast, powerful car that’s clean-burning, and sexy, and cool at the same time.” Last year HCC released a hydrogen-powered Shelby Cobra whose internal combustion engine has been modified to run on compressed hydrogen, which produces no carbon emissions.
Could a man glorify and enjoy God by modifying car engines?
Perhaps he sensed God’s call after memorizing Colossians 1:16, 17: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. ... And in him all things hold together?” Perhaps, as a member of Christ’s body, he believes he’s part of the plan to keep the world working, to keep it functioning safely and productively. And perhaps he believes that God has given him gifts and abilities and thereby equipped him to help his neighbors get to all the important places they have to go—without poisoning the air and their own lungs. Maybe he can’t get Psalm 19: 1, 2 out of his mind: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” When he sees the smog hovering over our cities he’s grieved. And he hopes, using science as his tool, to restore God’s masterpiece.
Or maybe all of that is beside the point. Maybe a Christian builds “cool” cars because every minute of his conscious life, he is aware that he is made in the likeness of the One who arranged constellations, designed rainbows, sculpted mountains, and composed the songs of 9,537 species of birds. As the image bearer of an all-creative God, he cannot bear the sight of unimaginative cars. And he has committed his life to reflecting the nature of his creative Father.
Or maybe he is a scientist determined to follow the clues that God left for us to find. He has explored the chemical composition of the world and unlocked the secrets of hydrogen. He has subdued them, harnessed them, and combined the elements in new ways for the sake of God’s world.
For any of these reasons he has acted in obedience, underscored God’s glory, and—no doubt—thoroughly enjoyed His pleasure.
In an earlier issue of Fast Company, Cheryl Rosner, the president of Hotels.com, told the magazine, “I remember when I decided to be in the hotel business. I was 11 years old and on vacation, watching all these people serving other folks, smiling and bringing smiles to customers’ faces. From then on, it never occurred to me to do anything else.” Later in the article Rosner says, “Our business is so dynamic, you have to get everyone to think, to be strategic, to create, to innovate, and to always think about what our customers and suppliers are looking for from us.”
What if a Christian had methodically worked her way into Rossner’s position because she really believed what Jesus said about the law: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” What if someone aspired to run a hotel company because, having inventoried her gifts and talents, she concluded that it was the most concrete and practical way for her to love her neighbors—especially when they are away from home, often apart from loved ones, after they have been herded into the coach section of a packed plane, and spent the day in grueling meetings.
And what if, in her efforts to make her neighbors smile, she recruited strategists who brainstormed 40 hours a week, pooling their creative energies to come up with better ways to serve? As hoteliers create new ways of meeting their neighbors’ needs, and as they harness new technology to make life more comfortable won’t they, at the same time, enjoy God as He works through them to care for His people?
We don’t know why Cheryl Rosner wants to make people smile, or why D. Cole Frates builds hydrogen cars, or why Jeffrey Ansell spends 70 percent of his waking hours making dog food. But we do know this: (1) whatever we do, we’re to do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians). And (2) God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose (1 Corinthians 12:18). In his providence God has placed most of this magazine’s readers in business, doing the same kinds of work as Ansell, Frates, and Rosner.
Because that’s how He intends for them to glorify and enjoy Him.
Dick Doster is the editor of byFaith magazine. You can reach him at editor@byfaithonline.com.
Because of this anticipation and impatience, I have been experiencing a sense of lethargy and dread when the clock gets closer to 4:00pm, because that means it's almost time to leave for work. I must say that my attitude has been awful concerning work and I have lost the concept that everything I do is to glorify God. It's the chief end of man, but sometimes I don't want to glorify God in my work-I just want to get it over with and do a good enough job that no one will bother me about my performance afterward.
I don't think that's the right attitude. Sure, I make excuses about being so busy in life and that's why I really don't feel like I can enjoy UPS, or I'm so eager to quit, but really I know that my perspective is wrong. Part of me sees this job as menial employment because I am better educated than most of my managers and have more non-UPS experience in management/professional business employment than many of the people who are my bosses, etc. So what? That shouldn't make me look at my job like it's something insignificant. Not because of what I do, but because of who I represent.
I think I've let myself lose that perspective lately.
It's time to get it back.
Below is a great article from www.byfaithonline.com and it really helped me when I read it yesterday. (I am posting the entire article because I could not get the link to work)
Everyday Life
Making Dog Food for the Glory of God
By Dick Doster
If you’ve been to a PCA church more than a few times you know by heart that the goal of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
But for Christians in business the Chief End of Man is often wishful thinking or a passing thought. Most Christians, including presumably, those in our denomination, spend eight, 10, maybe 12 hours a day at the office. On a good week we take Saturday off, but with email, cell phones, and the Internet, work is always close by. In fact, a number of surveys over the past few years report that Christians spend 60 to 80 percent of their waking hours at work in the secular world—selling, meeting, planning, and composing memos and emails. And when asked, “what’s the point of all that effort?” their answers suggest that the chief end of most men is “to make money.” Few Christians—and “few” is a generous estimate—believe their work in the world brings glory to God. And fewer still believe that selling, planning, and meeting are ideal ways to find His pleasure.
When and how then, laboring in a thorn-infested world, do God’s people do the things that eternally matter?
There may be clues in the secular press. The business magazine, Fast Company, recently identified the Fast Fifty—peak performers, the magazine says—who executed great ideas and made last year a good one.
Jeffrey Ansell, the 45-year-old president of the Iams (pet food) Company, is first on the list. He is, the magazine reports, an innovative leader who has worked hard to improve pets’ lives. Last year Ansell’s company developed a high-end food formulated to develop smarter, more trainable puppies. It created a pourable gravy to make dry food more appealing. And Ansell extended his company’s brand into veterinary services, developing two medical-imaging centers that allow vets to limit exploratory surgery on dogs and cats.
There’s no evidence in the article that Ansell’s a Christian, but if he were—if a believer had his job—could manufacturing and marketing dog food bring glory to God? And could it deepen his enjoyment of the Father?
Seems unlikely. And the idea probably strikes most as silly, if not heretical.
But what if…? What if a Christian intentionally climbs the corporate ladder, not because he covets money or power, but because he’s convinced that he is a redeemed descendant of Adam who has been given dominion over the earth and the animals? Every morning he pulls into the parking lot reminding himself that, “God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds. ... And God made the beasts of the earth. ... And God saw that it was good.’” What if he delights in God, joyfully working 60 hours a week making dog food because he actually believes that he’s a regent of the King who, “… out of the ground … formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them … ?” What if he can’t wait to get to work on Monday morning, not because he loves the power, but because he’s eager to research, explore, and make new discoveries that help us tend to creatures that God created, pronounced “good,” and entrusted to our care?
What if he goes to work intent on gaining market share, expanding distribution, and improving profit margins—not as ends, but as means—as critical tasks needed for the company to expand service, develop more innovative products, and hire more smart people? What if he works harder than his competitors, not simply to win, but to take a more expansive role in God’s renewing plan? He doesn’t know what life with the animals was like before the Fall, but he does know, when Christ consummates His plan, that, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. … The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD … ”(Isaiah 11:6-9). With Isaiah’s prophecy vaguely in mind maybe, when he saw photos of labrador retrievers searching the rubble at the World Trade Center, he was intrigued by their perseverance and wondered more about why God made them. Or perhaps when he saw German shepherds at the airport sniffing for smuggled drugs or hidden bombs he was fascinated by the fact that God, for some reason, gave them a sense of smell that is a hundred times greater than ours. He might have visited his mother in a nursing home and been touched by the way golden retrievers comfort widows who’ve been left all alone. Or, more likely, he simply delights at the way his own sloppy mutts lick his face every night when he comes home.
Whatever the case, when he goes to work because he’s the caretaker of God’s creation, when he labors as a regent of the King who is reconciling all things to Himself—he performs work that eternally matters.
D. Cole Frates is on the Fast Company list. Frates, 36, is the president of Hydrogen Car Company (HCC) in Los Angeles. He created HCC, he told the magazine, “because there was nothing we could buy that we wanted to drive—a fast, powerful car that’s clean-burning, and sexy, and cool at the same time.” Last year HCC released a hydrogen-powered Shelby Cobra whose internal combustion engine has been modified to run on compressed hydrogen, which produces no carbon emissions.
Could a man glorify and enjoy God by modifying car engines?
Perhaps he sensed God’s call after memorizing Colossians 1:16, 17: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. ... And in him all things hold together?” Perhaps, as a member of Christ’s body, he believes he’s part of the plan to keep the world working, to keep it functioning safely and productively. And perhaps he believes that God has given him gifts and abilities and thereby equipped him to help his neighbors get to all the important places they have to go—without poisoning the air and their own lungs. Maybe he can’t get Psalm 19: 1, 2 out of his mind: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” When he sees the smog hovering over our cities he’s grieved. And he hopes, using science as his tool, to restore God’s masterpiece.
Or maybe all of that is beside the point. Maybe a Christian builds “cool” cars because every minute of his conscious life, he is aware that he is made in the likeness of the One who arranged constellations, designed rainbows, sculpted mountains, and composed the songs of 9,537 species of birds. As the image bearer of an all-creative God, he cannot bear the sight of unimaginative cars. And he has committed his life to reflecting the nature of his creative Father.
Or maybe he is a scientist determined to follow the clues that God left for us to find. He has explored the chemical composition of the world and unlocked the secrets of hydrogen. He has subdued them, harnessed them, and combined the elements in new ways for the sake of God’s world.
For any of these reasons he has acted in obedience, underscored God’s glory, and—no doubt—thoroughly enjoyed His pleasure.
In an earlier issue of Fast Company, Cheryl Rosner, the president of Hotels.com, told the magazine, “I remember when I decided to be in the hotel business. I was 11 years old and on vacation, watching all these people serving other folks, smiling and bringing smiles to customers’ faces. From then on, it never occurred to me to do anything else.” Later in the article Rosner says, “Our business is so dynamic, you have to get everyone to think, to be strategic, to create, to innovate, and to always think about what our customers and suppliers are looking for from us.”
What if a Christian had methodically worked her way into Rossner’s position because she really believed what Jesus said about the law: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” What if someone aspired to run a hotel company because, having inventoried her gifts and talents, she concluded that it was the most concrete and practical way for her to love her neighbors—especially when they are away from home, often apart from loved ones, after they have been herded into the coach section of a packed plane, and spent the day in grueling meetings.
And what if, in her efforts to make her neighbors smile, she recruited strategists who brainstormed 40 hours a week, pooling their creative energies to come up with better ways to serve? As hoteliers create new ways of meeting their neighbors’ needs, and as they harness new technology to make life more comfortable won’t they, at the same time, enjoy God as He works through them to care for His people?
We don’t know why Cheryl Rosner wants to make people smile, or why D. Cole Frates builds hydrogen cars, or why Jeffrey Ansell spends 70 percent of his waking hours making dog food. But we do know this: (1) whatever we do, we’re to do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians). And (2) God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose (1 Corinthians 12:18). In his providence God has placed most of this magazine’s readers in business, doing the same kinds of work as Ansell, Frates, and Rosner.
Because that’s how He intends for them to glorify and enjoy Him.
Dick Doster is the editor of byFaith magazine. You can reach him at editor@byfaithonline.com.
posted by Bobby's blog at 9:27 AM
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