day 352: The Way We Work

I recently had a long conversation with someone who is struggling with the way people work around him and what that means to how he reacts and acts in the workplace. It is hard to be in an office environment where those around you don't share the same values and principles and you feel like you are always on the spot to either live out your values, principles and faith or choose not to and be like all the rest. The influence of the crowds and peers is a strong one and can feel like a tsunami of sucking out your values and then rolling back over you with the values, or lack thereof, of the others around you. It is why it is hard at work to stand firm in beliefs and to not cut corners, or to not tell the little white lie, or to not say one thing when you really mean something else, or to not fall into playing office politics when you know it is wrong to do so. Peers and influencers within a work setting can be worse than what we grew up with in high school. At this stage of life the ones influencing have careers and paychecks that they can wield instead of just name calling or teasing. It makes it hard to stand tall. But as believers and examples to others we have to take that stand and live out our values, live out our principles, and live out the way we work to honor God. In Colossians we are told that if we do so, we will grow and produce fruit that we may not even be aware has been produced; "Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better." On top of the fruit we will get an even greater blessing as we learn to know God better and better. Today, think through where you might be letting others influence the way you work and see if you can't pull that back into your value set and not theirs. Take this one day and see if when going home tonight you can say I lived and worked today to honor and please the Lord. God has promised fruit for those who will take this opportunity!

Reference: Colossians 1:10 (New Living Testament)

day 33: Produced Fruit

When we hire someone into a job we are basically crossing our fingers and hoping that the interview and assessment process works and that the person will be all that we want him/her to be. And, there is no day more so than someone’s first day when they will receive the highest regard and have the highest potential and expectations place on them. From day two on it will all be about the results they achieve and how they achieve those results. That is the way we are all evaluated at work. Someone got it mixed up when they thought that work was about having a place to go and do the least to be done to get by without regard to how others feel about how we do our job, get a paycheck and go home content and assured that the job will be there tomorrow and the next day. If there ever were those days, they are long gone. Today, we live in a performance-based work world where the expectations on us are raised each day. So, what you did yesterday is not good enough for tomorrow. This doesn’t have to be a negative. In fact, this is all within our control. Jesus gave us the parable in Matthew and its fruit. He was speaking of how we are to beware of false prophets and those who say they believe but don’t act or live so. He goes onto talk about how a tree that doesn’t produce fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, it is a reach to take this parable and bring it into the workplace, but part of our everyday way we live is how we live in our work and what we produce is under scrutiny in both the earthly and spiritual realms. The point here is that we have a choice in what kind of tree we want to be. We can choose to be a tree that produces fruit and results or we can choose to not be, and take the consequences. The fruit is not only "what" but also "how". And, so much of our spiritual journey on earth has to do with how we treat others and live our lives. It is the how as much as it is the what. Jesus says in Matthew 7:20 says that we can be identified by what it is we produce; “Yes, the way we identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced”. We have control over the type of fruit and results we will produce. While we have that control shouldn’t we do some self-introspection and pruning to be sure that we are producing at the level and abundance that we, and God, wants us to be producing?



Reference: Matthew 7:20 (New Living Testament)