Finding God at Work

"'I'll quit tomorrow,' I would say to myself—but tomorrow never came."   That's how Bob Poznanovich describes his experience of addiction.   Have you ever told yourself, "I'll quit tomorrow"?   When addiction gets its teeth into us, it's fierce. We can't get out. We can't quit. Why is that?   It's because addiction hijacks our need for something to give us life. It's a life source disorder.   That...

Anxiety is part of human experience for everyone.   At the same time, some people experience more intense or persistent anxiety than others.   For most of us, anxiety is part of our work experience.   In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us a teaching on anxiety, which is helpful both for run-of-the-mill anxiety, and for anxiety disorders. It's helpful for all of us at work.   In this teaching, Jesus primari...

Your soul is a relater, meant to connect with God and other people.   Your soul is a receiver, meant to take beauty in.   Your soul is an integrator, meant to put experiences together.   Depression affects your capacity to relate, your capacity to receive, and your capacity to integrate. That means depression affects your soul. Mild depression is like getting a spiritual cold. Severe depression is...

When you're depressed, it affects all aspects of your life and personality, including your will. Depression can make it harder to choose, to make decisions. But our will can still help us when we're depressed. Willingness leads to healing, while willfulness does not. When we're willing to be led by God's mercy, we find it. But when we have to have our own way, we often miss out on what God is doin...

According to a 2023 Gallup survey, one in three U.S. adults have been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetimes.   I'm one of those adults. Periodic episodes of depression have hit me all throughout my adult life.   When I'm depressed, I feel weak. I hate to admit to weakness. I hate to admit I'm depressed.   But the Apostle Paul shows us in 2 Corinthians 12 that we can "boast" in...

"Beauty points the way home." That's scholar Gregory E. Ganssle's way of putting it. When we stop to pay attention, we notice that "there's something there" for us in the world. This experience of encountering beauty suggests that we're meant to be *here,* but also that there's something more we're meant for. In the Christian story, we're meant for God. We're meant to receive life from him. It's u...

So many workplace interactions are soulless: transactional, manipulative, self-interested. You can smell other people's "commission breath"; they're after what's in it for them. What would it look like to love others at work with genuine, disinterested love? It's the life that Jesus gives us that redeems and restores our capacity to relate to God and to others in love. He restores our soul . Sourc...

Your body is always with you when you're at work. You can't do your work without it.   Scripture teaches us that the body is a gift. All of our work depends on this gift that we can't take credit for.   It's good for us to apply effort, but our strength for the effort comes from a source beyond ourselves. Sources: Luke 10:25-28 (NIV) Matthew 15:17-20 (NIV) Psalm 139:13-16 (NASB) 2 Samuel 4:9 (ESV)...

Each of us has within us a center that gives us life and determines the direction of our life: our heart.   Your heart can turn one way or the other. It's your heart that's the hinge.   We each have a will, a capacity to choose.   So how can we learn to choose well?   Sources: Luke 10:25-28 (NIV) Deuteronomy 30:15-18 (NIV) Joshua 24:23 (ESV) James 4:13-16 (NIV) Luke 9:23-24 (multiple translations)...

Our thoughts and our feelings can inform each other rather than compete with each other. When we're emotionally self-aware in the workplace, it actually helps us do the work of thinking through work problems logically.   Have you ever developed a bit of resentment toward a boss or a coworker? That resentment leads to a division in your relationship, a kind of subtle two-faced dynamic. Like Shakesp...

Spiritual director Alice Fryling calls our feelings "the spontaneous response we give to our interpretation of an event." Often, our immediate emotional responses are beyond our control. They're spontaneous. But if we pay attention to them, we can begin to see how they reveal our hidden beliefs—our interpretations of the world around us. Sources: Luke 10:25-28 (NIV) Jonah 3:10-4:11 (NIV) Alice Fry...

What does it mean to "love the Lord your God with all your mind" while doing your daily job? Often, it means embracing the pain of thinking hard about things, in order to get to the pleasure of true problem solving. Without embracing that pain of careful, diligent thought, we won't be able to get to the real, glorious triumphs at work. Sometimes we get confused about this. We think that being good...

We kick off a new series with this episode— Whole-Hearted: Becoming Healthier Christians at Work .   If you're like me, your work and your mental health influence each other quite a bit.   On the one hand, you want to experience that elusive sense of security and well-being that doesn't depend on your work performance. You want to be a healthy human being.   On the other hand, you want to perform....

A couple months back, Chris got to preach this sermon at his home church, City of Light . Its focus is Jesus' call of the first disciples: Jesus tenderly catches us in all our inadequacy, so that we can learn to catch others in the same way. Sources: Luke 5:1-11 (NIV) John August Swanson, Great Catch #FindingGodAtWork #FaithAndWork #GoodNews #Gospel #TheGospel #Sermon #Luke5 #Disciples #Miracle #C...

After the episode, hear from Chris about the Finding God at Work online course! Evangelism at its best is helping people catch a vision of just how beautiful Jesus is. Sources: 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 (NIV) Timothy Keller, as quoted in Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2022).   #Findi...

The work environment presents its own unique challenges for spiritual conversations. Depending on where you work, your organization might be supportive of faith conversations, or might be antagonistic towards them. Often, restrictions are against "proselytism"—but if we're having thoughtful conversations as we listen to our colleagues and gauge whatever we share to their level of openness, it's un...

Jesus constantly used the language of "entering" the kingdom. It's possible to be outside, and then to get inside. We enter through faith; the moment when someone places their confidence in Jesus is their entrance into the kingdom of God.  At the same time, it's just the *first* moment of a whole life of discipleship to Jesus that is beginning to unfold. Dallas Willard once said, "Discipleship is...

How can God be good when there is so much evil and suffering in the world? This question is in some ways the most profound challenge to Christian faith. Everyone who asks that question is asking it at two different levels. One is the intellectual level: Is there any way to make moral sense of this world? The other is the personal level. Every human being has known pain in some way. How can we resp...

We Christians believe some pretty strange things. One of the things we believe, which is at least pretty strange today in the Western world, is that spiritual knowledge is possible. We believe it is possible to be known by God, and to come to know God, and things about God. Not just beliefs, not just points of inspiration, but genuine knowledge. This puts us in a sticky situation when it comes to...

The point of sharing the Good News is not "winning." Helping our friends in their journey toward Jesus is not a debate or an intellectual contest. Jesus didn't answer every question asked of him by people who weren't really looking to be persuaded of his message. Instead, he taught in a way that reached the hearts of those who were genuinely seeking God. At the same time, when people are seeking G...

As we have conversations with our friends about spiritual things, one of the most powerful things we can do is share stories of our own experiences with Jesus. We see paradigms for this kind of sharing in the Bible itself. After delivering him from demonic oppression, Jesus says to the man of the Gerasenes: "Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you" (Mark 5:19 ESV)....

We all live inside stories. When someone's seeking, trying to get to a point of resolution, trying to get answers, then the story of the Bible can come alive for them with new urgency and clarity. This is the most fruitful time in someone's journey toward Jesus to dig into the stories of faith with them. We're following Jesus' lead here; he taught using stories—specifcally, using parables. These s...

There's a difference between having a kind of meandering interest in something and actively seeking it. When spiritual questions become urgent for someone, they're seeking. They want answers. When someone's at this stage, we can include them in our communities—places where they can ask their questions honestly and deeply. We can also help them clarify their quest and focus it on Jesus. Our friends...

Cats—even affectionate ones—are often less than fond of crowds. They can get a bit skittish. They stay aloof. Some of our coworkers are like that, too. It's not that they're unkind or rude; it's just hard to see them open up. They're a bit . . . aloof. Let's not assume that someone isn't open just because they aren't *immediately* open. Sometimes, you just have to find the right context to put som...