Finding Grace at Work

Let’s call them moments of grace - moments of unexpected blessing. We’ve all had them. Your car runs out of gas just as you pull into the station. You leave your wallet behind at a restaurant and a stranger calls you and brings it to your house. You’re broken down on the side of the road without your phone, not sure what to do, and a stranger stops. You forgot your key to the church, but someone left the back door open. (That last one is mine. It’s happened to me at least 10 times.)

You make a mistake and someone forgives you and even encourages you.

Grace. Christianity is built on it. What we’ve received from Christ is not something we deserve, but something we can only receive and be thankful for.

It’s an amazing thing when someone models grace with their life. And when it happens in the workplace, it can feel almost miraculous. Check out this recent story from “Preparation for Eternity.” It warmed my heart.
————————Real Live Preacher

Karen was very upset at herself for the mistake that she had made. She felt that this mistake could cost her her job. We tried all day to get a few moments with our boss to let him know. We left phone messages, e-mail and tried to schedule time through his personal assistant. In the late afternoon, he left the building. I was convinced that we shouldn’t let this news lie until the next day. I went down to Karen’s office and called our boss on my cell phone. He picked up, I put the phone on speaker and Karen shared the news with him….Read the rest of the story.

Preparation 4 Eternity - A blog for Christian husbands.

The Labors of the Artist

When it comes to thinking about work and God, we often focus on traditional kinds of jobs. Doctor, Lawyer, Fireman, Homemaker, etc. Sometimes we forget the artist who strives and works to glorify the Kingdom with beauty. Marcus Goodyear pointed to several posts within our community that remind us that creating art is work and is, therefore, a high calling of its own.

LL Barkat found a passage in I Chronicles that urges musicians to prophesy with the lyre:

“Imagine, that music could do this. And imagine that music does this in a place where all those other workers are keeping the place fragrant and abundant, beautiful and just. To me, this is a picture of the body of Christ. We all work together to prophesy, to show and declare God’s word.” …Read More.

Papa Poet quotes an ancient poem to call upon God to do whatever it takes to bring his life in God’s Will:

—-Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
—-As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
—-That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
—-Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new… Read More.

And finally, a new blogger in our network, Sarah Fry, posts a lovely piece that includes a YouTube clip of a master violinist. Sarah wonders if spiritual disciplines over the period of a lifetime can produce a similar beauty in our lives:

“The discipline of the holy life – discipline in every area – the “coming under” of ourselves to a Higher Power – is an absolutely necessary element. This, and only this, allow us to be fine-tuned to the place where we might enjoy the thrill of a life that sings with a holy brilliance.

Why is it that youth so often whispers to us that if we were truly committed enough, in love enough with Christ, that we would no longer need the discipline of holy living? Have we forgotten that the daily trying of our faith bringeth forth patience…spiritual muscle?” …Read More.

The Importance of Touch

One of our new blogs, Holy Experience, has caught my fancy. Ann V. is a beautiful writer. I’m looking forward to reading more of her work.

As a father of three, I know the strange feeling you get when your children begin to pull away. The truth is, you are pulling away from them as well. The feet you used to kiss, well, you don’t want to kiss them anymore. The bottom you wiped is now a private place. If you are the father of daughters, budding breasts make hugs and touching a little more delicate. But even though we pull away from each other, it is good to remember that we still need to touch our children. And they still need us as well. Ann V. reminded me of this in a recent post entitled, The Importance of Touch.

“I don’t remember when I stopped touching him.

Lanky legs, stretching back were signs for me…signs to distance and retreat. Signs of Caleb emerging as a man. And, who was I to touch the skin that clothes a future man?

Perhaps it was mere self-protection, withdrawing before he, inevitably, rejected his coddling mother? Or maybe it was where I came from: cuddling babies was appropriate; embracing boys was not.” …Click here to read more.

Holy Experience - Looking, listening, longing for God…in the hallowed experiences of a very ordinary life.

Around the High Calling Network

There’s a lot of good stuff out there among the High Calling Bloggers right now.

Selling among wolves writes about soft skills vs. hard skills.

The Marriage Conversation Blog discusses the kind of love that makes a marriage work.

Red Letter Believers is a wonderful blog that discusses a lot of contemporary issues that Christians face in he workplace. Lately they’ve talked about how you perform when the boss isn’t looking, and the difference between internal change and external superficiality.

Tom Peterson from “His Work in Progress” tells us a hilarious story of airplane delays with a thoughtful ending.

Carl Holmes reminds us that just as our bodies exist in rhythms, so to we have a spiritual rhythm we must find.

And finally, Steve at “Thy Grace is Sufficient” has noticed the lack of intersection between his church community and the community of his daily life.

When You Lose Your Job

There’s not many things more frightening than losing your job. A few years ago my wife was laid off from a job that she had held for 12 years. There was no problem with her performance. There was just no room for her in the changing organization. The whole experience was very difficult for our family. When people lose their jobs, the stress is incredible. There is financial pressure and fear. The family has to tighten its belt and do with less. Plans get put on hold.

So how should Christians in the workplace respond to losing their jobs? Every Square Inch tackles this difficult issue in his latest posting.

“Whether you’ve been fired, retrenched or euphemistically, “let go”, losing your job can be a difficult trial to walk through. Given that an average person will have 10 to 12 jobs in a lifetime of work, losing your job at least once during that span of time, is actually a likely scenario. The question isn’t whether it’ll happen to you, but rather how you plan to deal with it when it does happen.

Can a Christian lose his job, yet keep his integrity in the process? How do you get fired and glorify God?”…Click here to read more.

Every Square Inch - Conversations on the glory of Christ in business and culture.

Serendipity

A serendipitous moment is a surprise blessing. Sometimes they happen to you; sometimes you have to look for them. J.Schaap found a serendipitious blessing in an old cassette tape. On it was a voice he hadn’t heard for a long time.

“Some time ago, I unearthed an old cassette tape, a sermon my grandfather preached in December of 1951, Oostburg, Wisconsin, the town where I was born and reared. Years ago, my uncle gave it to me, a man who himself has been gone for decades.

I knew that sermon was delivered in my home town, the church where I spent my first seven years or so; I knew it when, halfway through, a train went by on the tracks just a few hundred yards west. It was an evening service.”…Click here to read more.

Stuff in the Basement - Writer & educator J. Schaap writes about life and the things that matter to him.

Do it Yourself

There was a time, long ago, when you had to do everything for yourself. If you lived on a remote farm, you had to grow your own food, harvest it, cook it, and serve it to your family. Many people created their own clothing, indeed even created the cloth out of which it was made. All of your trash and refuse was yours as well. You had to gather it and burn it or otherwise dispose of it.

Toys were made for children by their parents. Bullets for hunting were made by men pouring lead into molds. Every loaf of bread was prepared by hand by women kneading dough on worn tabletops. That sounds like a romantic ideal. But the downside is this: if you do everything yourself, you can’t do as much in life. Your whole life consists of providing food and clothing to yourself and your family.

In the modern world we all specialize. We spend our time doing one or two things very well. Some of us teach children, others grow food, still others drive the food to market. When we are done consuming, a specialist comes to take away our trash.

I doubt that many of us would want to go back to a life where people did everything for themselves. And I doubt many of us would be equipped to do so in any case.

But don’t you know, somewhere down inside, that we lose something precious when we farm out every aspect of our lives?

There is a rather unique spiritual discipline that most people do not talk about. That is the discipline of doing something for yourself. You can’t do everything, but you could pick one or two thing and take the time and trouble to do them yourself. Maybe you decide to make a loaf of bread for your family once a week. Maybe you tell stories around the fire instead of letting the television tell stories for you. I don’t know what you need to do, but trust me, you need to do something yourself.

I was touched by Rev. K.C. Wahe’s description of burning his own ashes for use at his church’s Ash Wednesday service. It was work, but it was something worth doing himself.

Gordon Atkinson, Real Live Preacher

Don’t Worry

Everyone says you shouldn’t worry. And I believe that. It’s just….I don’t know how to stop. Does that sound familiar? One of the writers behind Red Letter Believers is having a lot of stress and worry at work. Take a look at what he has to say.

“I worry. I come from a family of worriers. We’ve mastered it. I’m certain my family’s DNA comes complete with a worry gene. What do I worry about? All manner of things, it just depends on the day. Lately I’ve been worrying about work. It’s been a turbulent time — like a roller coaster ride with lots of twists and turns. The workload has gone up and I’m worried about how I’m going to keep up”….Click here to read more.

Red Letter Believers - Red Letter Believers don’t just wear a title. They seek to live out their faith — impacting their jobs, their homes, their communities, and their nation.

The Numbers Game

As a pastor, I certainly know what it means to play the numbers game. Generally the first question I get asked (especially by other ministers) is, “How many members do you have?” The second question is, “How many are you running on Sunday?”

Running on Sunday? Um, I don’t know. We don’t count people, and I sure hope we’re not running them off.

There’s just something about numbers that intrigues us. It’s the standard measure in American life. “How much money do you make?” is the question, not “Do you enjoy what you do for a living?” Now as hard as that is for ministers, I would imagine the temptation to let numbers be the marker of your success is even higher in the business world. Gibson Direct talks about keeping a good perspective on the numbers game.

After spending 28 years in the publishing business, I find it easy to become jaded. After a while, publishing becomes simply numbers on a page. How many can we sell? What are the markets for this book? Who will endorse it?…

“The question was not, ‘How many books would sell?’—’Or would this work make the best-seller list?’ Rather, the central concern was that it be used by our Father to awaken His people to their peril. Here our faith could not repose in any publisher, editor, sales strategy, bookstore or publicity.” Click here to read more….Click here to read more.

Gibson Direct blogs about business and life and how faith intersects both of them.

Ash Wednesday

When I moved to San Antonio, I knew nothing of Lent. I was brought up Baptist, and we didn’t do Lent. I knew it was something that Catholics did and that it involved giving something up for a period of time. But that’s all I knew. My first Ash Wednesday came shortly after we arrived in town. I saw someone with a smudge on her forehead.

“Excuse me,” I said, “But you have something on your forehead.”

She smiled and said, “It’s ashes.”

I thought that was an odd answer. So I said, “Well, ashes or dirt or whatever. I was just letting you know.”

Things have changed over the last 20 years, and now my Baptist church observes the season of Lent along with most of Christendom. It is a season of mourning, a season of remembering our weak humanity, and a season of entering the desert with Jesus for 40 where we hope to hear from the Spirit of God. A number of our bloggers have posted Ash Wednesday or Lenten essays today. I hope their writing blesses you.

————————————Gordon Atkinson (Real Live Preacher)

Godspace
Portrait of a Writer, Interuppted
It Takes a Church
Novus Lumen
The Suburban Christian

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