day 337: Bo Bo Dolls

I had a Bo Bo doll when I was a kid. It was of Presto the Clown. Once it was blown up I could hit it as hard as I wanted, as many times as I wanted, and Presto would always bounce right back up to me, ready for the next punch. Does this feel anything like work to you? If you are in Sales, Operations, Customer Service or any area where you are expected to be overly resilient and bounce back from one failure to another, then you probably have a little bit of Presto the Bo Bo doll in you. What makes the Bo Bo doll work is that it has a weight in the bottom of it that keeps the rest of the doll upright and coming back for more. Most of us have one of those weights down deep inside of us too, otherwise we wouldn't keep coming back for more, day after day, week after week. Monday is a Bo Bo Doll day for a lot of people and they dig deep and bounce back to upright and are ready to go on Monday morning. It is a noble and admirable characteristic to have and resiliency and fortitude pays off. But, there are some things that no one really gives you much "weight" when it comes to work. It's easy to bounce back from the obvious; missed deadlines, sales rejections, product flaws, bad bosses, etc. But, the areas like excessive politics, back-biting, undercutting and back-stabbing are all real things that happen at work, but no one really spends much time preparing or supporting us in those areas. These are the unspoken areas that we are just supposed to be able to handle on our own. Those who can't, well, aren't thought of as tough enough a lot of times. These are all areas where we need to look to God to come to work with us. He is the best equipped to get us through these challenges so that we overcome them and more importantly, don't fall into the trap of acting out those behaviors in retaliation or survival. God gives us His promise in Isaiah 57:15 and says to us that if we remain humble and repentant that He will take care of us when we get knocked down; "I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts". Our God is standing by wanting to fill you with His' Bo Bo Doll weight so we can bounce back from anything and be super-resilient in the eyes of others and ourselves. He doesn't want us to be beaten down and stay down, he wants to see us bounce right back and to be upright! All we need to do is allow Him to fill us up!

Reference: Isaiah 57:15 (New Living Testament)