I don’t know what your experience is with work.  I’ve seen it all.  Like the business owner with five stores in two cities commuting to and from whose kids had not been on a family vacation in their lifetimes as six- and eleven-year-olds.  Like a professor who gets four weeks free in summer but chimed “I don’t think I’ve ever taken off a whole month. What would I do?”  And still others who are working hourly-paying jobs, enduring the routine, and forever eyeing the clock.  They loath their work, glory in coffee breaks, and live for long weekends.

Bryan Robinson studies workaholism and defines it as a compulsive disorder characterized by self-imposed demands, over-working, and the inability to regulate our work.  One sign of it is not investing in our home lives.

At the other end of the continuum is sloth which is inactivity born of ‘careless indifference’ or not giving a rip.  Maybe we don’t care about work when we find no purpose in it.

I suppose there’s virtue somewhere in the middle.  In between is that mix of hard work and intentional play.  In the creation story God’s purposes were wonderfully guided: He intended to architect the universe, earth, bugs, and us.  And then he rewarded himself, not because he was tired, but because he wanted to set an example for us, his creation.  Work, work, rest; work, work, rest.  When those tasks are out of balance, we’re prone to exhaustion on the one hand, or insolence on the other.

Questions:  How’s your work-life balance?  Does your work sap your life?  Does your life provide no purpose for your work?  How might God help give purpose to life and work?

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You’re wise to hunt for a job before you lose one.

The number of people dissatisfied with their jobs appears to be increasing. The Society for Human Resource Management survey found that the percentage of unhappy employees has been rising since 2009. People are reacting to job uncertainty by hunting for new jobs

So how can you find a new job that’s perfect for you? Begin with some of the many job sites on the web. You might begin with an article we recently ran on “16 Totally Free Job Sites You Need to Know About”.

But today we’re not going to focus on how to do resumes or network to hunt for job openings. Let’s look a little deeper and see if we can’t help you decide what type of job, company and career you should be pursuing. Rather than sending out thousands of electronic resumes, we’ll try to narrow your search so that your efforts become focused.

Begin with some self-examination. That’s something that most of us are too busy to do regularly. But, it’s important if you want to change jobs/careers. Take a few evenings to think about you. What are you good at? Bad at? What things do you like or dislike? What things get you excited? How do friends and family think of you? What events in your life were really important? And, what do they tell you about yourself?

Spend some time alone with these questions. Write your answers down. That will force you to dig a little deeper for your answers. After you’ve finished the self-examination ask some close friends or family to answer the same questions for you. Often they’ll see things that we can’t see about ourselves.

Armed with this self-knowledge, the next step is to do a little dreaming. Think about what your perfect job would look like. Don’t make it practical. If your dream has you showing up at noon so you can sleep in, that’s fine. If it means you take your netbook to the beach and work from there, that’s fine, too. This is a time to be unrealistic. Think big and bold!

Obviously, you won’t expect to find a job that looks exactly like your dream. But you may find that certain jobs/professions share elements with your perfect job. Wherever possible, you’ll want to choose potential jobs that include some of your dream ideas.

Next choose some potential professions to consider. You’ll want to take into account some of the personal traits you’ve discovered, but you’ll also need to be practical. This is the time to learn about any long-term trends for the profession. Use the net to research the field. Will there be job opportunities for years to come or is it a dying profession? Is it one that’s being replaced by robots or computers?

Finally ask yourself if you can picture being in that profession ten or twenty years from now. Will you be able to handle the physical or mental challenges? Or would you be totally bored doing the same things over and over?

You don’t want to change jobs or professions only to find out that you’ve run out of opportunities in a few years. Better to discover that now before you’ve made the effort to find a good job.

By blending the practical and ideal you should have a good idea what type of job and company you’re looking for. So target your job hunt on those targets. Let others send out thousands of resumes. You focus on the few and take the extra steps to increase your odds of success with them. Don’t just send a resume. Send a resume and follow up with a personal call. Use LinkedIn to make friends within the company. Use multiple resources to reach your goal.

Hopefully you’ll find a job that suits your skills, provides ample opportunity in a field that can supply a steady income for many years to come.

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“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Do you find yourself paying unusual attention to a verse of scripture or words of another with a sense of “knowing” that the Lord is speaking to you?  It happened to me the other day reading a devotional and later in conversation with a friend who follows the Lord.

In Streams in the Desert by L. B. Cowman on August 25th, page 325 it says “Moses attempted the deliverance of his people by using self effort, his personal influence, and even violence.  So God “locked him up” for forty years in the wilderness before he was prepared for His work.”  Later in conversation, my friend mentioned casually that it is the Lord who is living His life through us – the fruit we bear is as a result of His working.

The Lord had my attention.  When I survey the past few years I believe He is trying to teach me to rest in Him and allow His Spirit to lead and guide.  He is the one who can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.  He is the one who saves souls.  The work of God – no matter what He has called us to – cannot be accomplished through self effort or personal influence.

May the Lord enable us to depend upon and trust Him, to walk in His power, and to allow Him to live His life through us.  May He teach us, like Moses, the way of faith – trusting Him for the fruit.

“But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand forces him.  So I will raise My hand and strike the Egyptians, performing all kinds of miracles among them.  Then at last he will let you go.  And I will cause the Egyptians to look favorably on you.”  Exodus 3:19-21a

Prayer:

Father God, you are the One who knew Pharoah’s heart and what it would take to free your people. You worked miracles, raised Your hand to help and to intervene, You caused hearts to change and even favor to fall on Your people.  You accomplished the work…help us to trust and depend upon You regardless of the road we are walking or what You have called us to do.  The principle is the same today…You do the work! Amen.

 Questions: What are you depending upon?  Are you trying to bring about the Lord’s will using personal power and influence?  Are you just trying harder and harder?

When Jesus loves, he works up a sweat; he rolls up his sleeves, gets on his knees, and washes our feet with his blood, sweat, and tears.

He labors at love, though his love is never like labor. He’s a giver, not a taker, loving us into being with a gifted carpenter’s hands. And he’s no slacker, loving us until we can take no more; no more because we’re filled to overflowing, his love spilling and splashing through our pores into the cores of those we love with his love, a love’s labor not lost on a world that needs to be found.

He wrestles our fears and wrangles our doubts and labors at love until he’s exhausted, lying prone in a garden, drinking from God’s cup the nourishment necessary for one last heroic sweaty, bloody, tearful lift of the Father’s infinite love; ready to die for God’s undying love.

A Jesus-love sticks to it, even when the it seems like an unstickable fury that’s no longer fun or convenient or even something you want to do. Jesus keeps on laboring in you and through you, finishing what he started, loving until the last with a love that lasts forever (John 13:1).

Question: What example of Jesus’ labor in love is most striking to you, and why?

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There is great satisfaction in a job well done, but there is also a danger.

Pride, that insidious sin, tends to swell our brains so that they can no longer think straight.

Although we often begin with the right attitude, using the gifts God has given us – health, energy, creativity or intelligence – to work, learn and produce, sometimes in the end our perspective becomes distorted. We start to think too highly of ourselves and forget that it was God who enabled us to accomplish these things in the first place.

In the Old Testament judgment was proclaimed on the city of Tyre, not because of their ambition or skill, but because they had grown proud.

“By your great skill in trading you have increased your wealth, and because of your wealth your heart has grown proud.” (Ezekiel 28:5)

“Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor” (Ezekiel 28:17).

We can keep ourselves from falling into the same trap of arrogance by remembering that everything we have is a gift from God.

“For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not” (1 Corinthians 4:7)?

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).

God give me a grateful heart to always remember that everything thing I have – my intelligence, beauty, athletic ability, musical talent – is a gift from You. Thank you for the amazing things You have done in me and through me; may I never forget Your work in me and grow proud.

Questions: In what situations are you in danger of growing proud? What helps keep you from falling into the trap of pride?

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