“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” (Matt 6:33 NLT)
It has been 16 years since I left the corporate world to work as a pastor in the Methodist church. The reality today is that, with advanced technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a borderless business world, the pace and challenges in the marketplace are definitely faster and greater. For instance, one can be in Bangkok for a breakfast business meeting and fly to Beijing for a multi-region business conference on the same day.
Since I left the corporate world more than a decade ago, many might think I have lost touch with the “real” world. Would my past experiences still be relevant for me to journey with our members in living out their faith in their workplaces?
My answer is a resounding “Yes!”. Firstly, having worked in the marketplace for 20 years, I had experienced the high levels of stress, office politics and drama that accompanied the quest to meet Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) every year. When I speak with working people, I can fully identify with their struggles at work and their dreams for the future.
At the same time, whenever I am tempted to think I have “been there and done that”, I remind myself that the stress they are feeling could be 10 times worse than mine. That keeps me humble as I actively listen to the challenges they are facing before giving any judgement or advice.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” (Heb 13:8 NLT)
If we imagine ourselves as being in a rural setting, we will realise our Lord’s teachings are actually as relevant to the marketplace now as they were in the New Testament times. People are the same through the ages—with the same likes and dislikes, fears and joys, and relationship issues with family, friends and colleagues. Whatever the situation, whenever the time, we can follow Jesus’ example—to do the Father’s will for the kingdom wherever one is.
Consequently, when our conversations about the marketplace are rooted in Christ and guided by His Spirit who indwells every believer, we can be certain our responses to any situation at work will be aligned with the kingdom.
Jesus is the perfect example to follow when it comes to our attitude and behaviour, both in life and in the workplace. Seeing Matthew 6:33 as a promise from God, we can take hope that “he will give you everything you need.” Jesus also said that, while “these things” (referring to the worries of everyday life, such as food and clothing) dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, our heavenly Father already knows all our needs (Matt 6:32).
It is reassuring to know that God knows our heart’s desires even before we ask. However, God’s heart is always moved when His children go to him to verbalise their needs and wants.
What would you ask the Father for today?
Is it recognition from your bosses for your hard work and achievements because you are aiming for the next promotion?
Are you praying for cooperation from your colleagues or subordinates to help you achieve your KPIs?
Do you wish to land a job you love so that your fullest potential in your profession would be achieved?
Counterintuitively, God will fulfil our wishes when we do just one thing, the one condition of His promise—put His kingdom above all else. Everything in our life and workplace will align when we relocate the centre of our attention from ourselves to doing the kingdom’s work.
It is crucial to know that Jesus did not want us to leave or isolate ourselves from this dark world. In His priestly prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked the Father not to take us out of the world but to keep us in it. However, He prayed that the Father would keep evil away from us so that we may fulfil the mission of the kingdom after He left (John 17).
Interestingly, the Lord also did not speak about having to make a change in our activities, pace or friends when we follow Him. Instead, the J.B. Phillips New Testament’s translation of Mathew 6:33 clarifies that what Jesus spoke about was a change of heart for His kingdom: “Set your heart on the kingdom and his goodness, and all these things will come to you as a matter of course.”
When we focus only on fulfilling our work goals and career aspirations, our hearts are in the wrong place. When we heed Jesus’ call to move our hearts to focus on the kingdom, everything we wish for will fall into place.
While on earth, Jesus had a busy life teaching, preaching, healing, exorcising, engaging His enemies and friends, and reaching out to the masses as He moved from place to place. He was caught up with so many things that He had little time for Himself.
However, we learn from the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) that, in His busyness, Jesus was concerned only with doing the Father’s will for the kingdom. He says, “… the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does” (John 5:19 NLT).
Jesus is our perfect example in the marketplace because His words and actions were always in total obedience to the loving Father. It was through this obedient love relationship with the Father that His ministry grew impactfully despite strong opposition and persecution. We will never be able to understand the full meaning of the richness of Jesus’ ministry until we see how all the things He did were rooted in the intimacy of perfect love with the Father.
My last five years in the corporate world before I entered full-time pastoral ministry were the best years of my career. As I grew in my relationship with Jesus through the study and intentional application of God’s Word, I realised that God had placed me in the marketplace for His glory, not mine. To glorify God at work, my responsibility was to bring the Father’s love to my colleagues, especially those who were struggling with various aspects of their lives. What this meant for me was that I no longer worked for my dreams, promotion, pay increment or recognition. No more longing for a bigger house or a nicer car. However, it did not mean I became lazy and slackened at my job.
Every day, I had a quiet trust and confidence that God would take care of my every need while I focused on what He required of me: being a responsible worker, connecting with people, helping them and even walking the extra mile to help them achieve their goals. All I did was to enable people to experience the Father’s love through me so that, through my words and deeds, others could see the face of Jesus. Faith itself is invisible, but when it works through each believer, it becomes personified in a tangible humanity that others can clearly see.
As I obeyed God by giving more and more of myself to others through my time, effort and expertise, God gave me wisdom to accomplish my work assignments efficiently and effectively. He granted me favour with my colleagues and bosses.
For the first 15 years of my corporate life, I strove so hard with immense stress, worries, anxiety, fear, anger and unhappiness. At the height of all these, I would develop a tension headache as my wife drove me to work each day, which increased as we got nearer to the office. Despite putting my all into the work, I failed to achieve my goals.
When I changed my focus, with much joy and purpose, to applying kingdom principles in my workplace, God started opening all the closed doors I had been knocking on. He kept his promise as I lived in single-minded obedience to do His will at work.
Moreover, my colleagues, who noticed the change in my attitude and behaviour, became interested in my living faith. My workstation became a place where they would come to engage me in spiritual conversations as they heard I was attending the weekly Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) and doing part-time study at Trinity Theological College (TTC). Those who came were people of different faiths. This opened up valuable interactions and, connections at the soul level. When I did my utmost at work and helped others succeed at the same time, both colleagues and bosses became more open to the “what” and “why” of my actions. I was able to openly bear witness to the love of Jesus and what He has done for me. I reached a point when I told my bosses not to plan my future career path as I was following Jesus and trusted Him to lead me to find the most meaning and purpose for my life.
Only when we realise that the goal of Jesus’ ministry is simply to bind people together into a love relationship with the heavenly Father, through the community of believers, will we understand our Father’s expectations.
How does this goal play out for you in the marketplace?
What would you sacrifice in your career so that your colleagues, both believers and unbelievers, may experience the love of the Father?
Do you help your colleagues out of the Father’s love for them or with the hidden agenda to convert them to Christianity?
How can you include unbelievers in the community of believers at work without alienating them with the use of Christian jargon?
What can you do with fellow Christian colleagues to make the workplace a conducive and nurturing community for growth, both professionally and socially, for the glory of God?
May we remember to be the face of Jesus and exemplify Him wherever we are placed, trusting in God to give us everything we need. Amen.
Images: Pixabay.com
Read also: A Biblical Response to Challenges in the Workplace
