The Great Divide
Many of us, at one time or another, have had a job where we have to physically clock in and out. If you have not had this experience, you can probably gather from the description that “clocking in” is when an employee physically arrives to work and starts on company time. The point is that once clocked-in whatever the employee was doing prior to arriving, now takes a backseat to whatever is required for the day’s work. Once the work day is complete, the employee then clocks-out for the day and the expectations of the job give way to other priorities outside of the workplace. Have you ever seen a church with this same set up? Of course not. Then why do we so often “clock-out” of the kingdom?
In Matthew 16:19, Jesus says “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus does not give us a punch card, he gives us keys. Many times we limit our connection with God to certain scenarios or locales, but God never meant for a Christian’s life to be segmented. We may be employees at our jobs, but Jesus requires more than 8 hours a day and certainly more than a time set aside for Sunday church or personal devotional. I have touched on the divide between the secular and the sacred or spiritual, but in fact, I would like to take it even further. If we look at the Bible, it never mentions a “spiritual life”, which is strange considering how much focus the church has placed on having our spiritual lives in order. The ancient Jewish culture did not have things they considered to be spiritual and things they did not, the culture was all inclusive and everything was sacred, it was a holy and wholistic lifestyle. It wasn’t until the Greek philosopher, Plato, came on the scene that even the idea of compartmentalized segments of life were entertained.
So how do we back track out of a culture that has been divided? How do we mend this gap in our workplaces? How do we break away from leaving the “spiritual stuff” at the door when we clock-in? How do we get out of the habit of spending our days operating and acting no different than co-workers who have different faith or no faith at all? Well, I’m glad you asked.
We know that God created work and that work is a good thing. We know that God is involved in every aspect of our lives and he is a good creator. Everything we were made to do was to be walking and connecting with God. God connected with Adam when he first gave him work to do on the earth in Genesis 2:15, and it is no different for us today. Having the right perspective about work gives us the power to subdue the thorns and thistles. Knowing that work is not wasted time gives us the strength to serve a terrible boss like Joseph served, not just because we are supposed to be kind but because we have God’s heart for our work place. So you are telling me that I am not only called to love the people I work with, but to serve my company to the best of my ability and with excellence because that also brings glory to God? EXACTLY! “Our daily work can be a calling only if it is reconceived as God’s assignment to serve others.”
― Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work
Take 5 min on a break and pray; ask God for how you can better serve your job and the people you work with and for. How can the business be better because of you? We need to connect what God is doing in us and apply it to our vocations. This is the first step to turning our marketplace into our ministry. We must acknowledge that God does not stay between the bindings in our bibles or behind the doors in our prayer closets; he is with us in every moment and in every endeavor. So yes, that includes where most of us spend the majority of our time, at work.
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