Carroll Experiencing God In Your Work

Insights and Stories to Help You Connect Meaningfully with God in Your Work
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-0983-2152-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 196 Seiten

Experiencing God in Your Work gives inspirational perspectives and practical ideas on how to meaningfully connect with God in the normal flow of everyday work, regardless of the vocation. Part One establishes a critical Biblical foundation for God's overall purpose for work. Part Two reveals critical perspectives about 'God's calling' as it relates to work as well as perspectives on why work is hard. Part Three addresses eight important topics on how to practically experience God in work. Each lesson is accompanied by relevant and compelling personal stories, anecdotes, and quotations from both classic and modern Christian thinkers. At the end of each chapter, important discussion questions are provided which makes this book as an excellent choice for personal or group study.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Carroll, Joe

Leseproben

Introduction: Opus Dei It’s Wednesday, 6:17 P.M. Looks like I’ll be late for dinner…again. As I leave my office, a lot of work is being left behind. Left behind are unfinished projects. Left behind are voice-mail messages that need to be returned…proposals that need to be written…e-mails that need to be answered. Yet, as I head to my car, the most unsettling feeling is the realization that somewhere in my workday, God got left behind. Feelings of guilt and frustration disturb me as the most important Being in my life has been left out of my day. I wish I could say this was an unfamiliar feeling. It’s not. For me, experiencing God in my daily work is hard. I’ve discovered that my well-intentioned resolves from morning devotions to experience God in my work can disappear as soon as the demands of the day set in. However, I firmly believe that God can be experienced in our work.…and since starting my career over thirty-four years ago, I’ve had many wonderful and meaningful times when I’ve experienced God in my work. But I know that God has so much more for me to experience. I have a deep realization that the extent to which I genuinely engage with God in my work is a reflection of how authentically my faith is being integrated into the rest of my life. The gap between my desire to experience God in my work and the reality of actually experiencing God in my work is certainly not unique to me. I’ve interacted with many who have a sincere desire to experience God in their work and are frustrated with the disconnect that exists between their desire and their reality. In a recent small group meeting, one man shared how he and two other men covenanted to totally involve God in their daily work. They were going to hold each other accountable and report back to each other at the end of each day. Their efforts were short-lived and within days, their desires were doused with feelings of disillusionment. And like these men, I’ve discovered that the desire to experience God in work and the reality of authentically experiencing God in work is elusive and not encountered by most. There have been many occasions, at the end of my workday, when I’ve said something like, God, where were You today? It seemed like we started out well, but somewhere along the way I forgot all about You. I remember wrestling with similar feelings when I started my career many years ago. The year 1981 was a big year for me. I finished college, moved to San Antonio, Texas, and got married, all within a six-month period. My wife, Martha, and I had met while we were involved in a Navigators ministry at the University of Texas in Austin. The greatest challenges we faced in the first years of our marriage were not marriage issues but work issues. Martha got a job as a teacher and I was hired to be a leasing agent for a prominent commercial real estate developer. It was very common for us, after an exhausting day at work, to plop onto the bed and talk about our day. I treasure those memories. We laughed and shared highlights, but much of the conversation was about the fears, anxieties, difficulties, and stresses we were experiencing in our work. Beginning a career was one of the hardest transitions of my life. I remember feeling so insecure and intimidated. Everyone seemed so confident and knowledgeable, while I often felt like a deer in the headlights. My introduction to my career field felt like learning a new language, as many of the words, procedures, and skills were foreign to me. I was anxious because I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. Suffice it to say that my transition into work was a sobering experience. I had experienced God in so many exciting ways during my college years. Work, however, spiritually disrupted me. It shook the foundation of my identity and challenged the authenticity of my faith. It exposed my underdeveloped theology of work and my immaturity in living out the gospel relevantly in one of the most important arenas of society—work. The pursuit to integrate faith and work has been a challenging endeavor. And I’ve observed that it doesn’t come naturally to any of us. I’ve also witnessed many who seem well-intentioned in their efforts to bridge this gap, but in many instances their efforts are culturally irrelevant and frankly, socially weird. While Jesus’ life and teachings created spiritual upheaval in people’s lives, His faith expressions genuinely and relationally engaged with those around Him. Is this not the type of faith experience we long for? A faith that experiences no dividing line between Sunday worship and Monday work? A living faith that ends practical atheism in our work and authentically connects us with God while working with others in a culturally relevant manner? The Emergence of BLE I also discovered that the pursuit to experience God in my work was not meant to be a solo endeavor. A few years after a jump-start career, God providentially linked me with a few other men who were serious about integrating their faith into their work. We were an unlikely grouping of guys in different seasons of life and different professions. Yet, within each of us, God had developed a conviction that He had created work to be a spiritual endeavor. We were awakened and motivated by the fact that God is the Author of all enterprise and that principles necessary to live a God-honoring life at work are revealed in the Bible. Our interactions led to focused times of prayer. Our times of prayer led to a spiritual vision…a vision birthed by God to reach a multitude of men and women who would impact their workplaces by the melding of their faith into their work. The vision led to an intense collaboration of writing, interacting, and praying. This eventually led to inviting others to join us to try out a new ten-week interactive and Bible-focused group on The Effective Christian Career. The first trial group was held early in the morning in my office conference room in 1984. Others soon became interested. Study groups multiplied around the San Antonio area and into other cities. We trained leaders and encouraged groups to be held in workplaces. The power of people discussing God’s Word as it applies to work significantly changed the way many people approached their work experience. It was from these beginnings that Biblical Leadership for Excellence (BLE) emerged, and since then thousands have been involved in BLE groups in the workplace. It became obvious to all of us who were involved at the beginning that a spiritual movement in the marketplace was occurring that far exceeded anything we could have engineered. God was moving… He was certainly moving in the lives of many in our city in spite of our character flaws and shortcomings. Conference rooms became prayer rooms, and we heard of other marketplace ministries that began in other cities across the country. Theologian David Miller chronicles the broader scale of this movement of God in his book God at Work. He cites the history of three major time periods in which there have been significant Faith at Work movements. Notice the time frame he cites as the beginning of the most recent Faith at Work movement: “This era is evident as early as 1985, built momentum and size through the 1990s, and still continues today with no sign of receding.”1 Work is the place where we spend the majority of our lives—yet it is the place where God is experienced the least. While this movement is growing globally, there still remains a prevailing need for us to learn how to desecularize our work and meaningfully experience God in the normal activities of our work. Obviously, the topic of this book is huge, and it goes beyond my abilities or maturity level to adequately address. As a result, this book is a more of a book of aspiration. The lessons expressed here are what I aspire to experience in my own life and what I believe God desires for every Christ follower. My journey to experience God in my work has been exciting and meaningful, but I still have many moments and many days in which I have been spiritually disconnected in my work…days in which I have thought more about myself than I have about God. I’m in desperate need of following the directives and challenges laid out in this book as much as anyone. I have also purposely sought to include the voices of other Christ followers, through their experiences and stories, in how they have experienced God in their work. (In some cases, names have been changed to protect their identity.) It’s my desire that this book will be a springboard for God to take you down a faith-invigorating journey with Him in your work…that you will enjoy His presence more and that His character will impact your work-related motivations and interactions. Keep a copy of this book handy in your office for those times when you need a freshened perspective or encouragement. I assure you that your desire to experience God more personally in your work will be greatly enhanced if you meet weekly with others to discuss the lessons and honestly interact over the questions at the end of each chapter. (Appendix A provides some guidelines that can help make your group experience meaningful.) In 1928, a young priest in Spain by the name of Josemaria Escriva personally discovered the truth of how God is to be experienced in the simple activities of everyday life, including work. These convictions led to the teaching of Opus Dei2, which declares that...