Taking It to Work:
When I have status meetings, I like to keep them fairly upbeat. I think it’s good for the staff, the company as a whole, and frankly, it’s good for me as well. I like to start off with accomplishments, accolades, and discussions around what is going right, good stuff that’s around the corner, and maybe the exciting opportunities possibly coming our way. If I don’t consciously do that, it seems like the more natural thing is to look right past the victories, right past the things that went well, and jump straight into all that is going wrong.
It’s not healthy in the workplace, and it’s not healthy in life either. Even with the hope we have as Christians, if we don’t intentionally keep our focus predominantly on the good, we can easily tumble down Hopeless Hill and find ourselves huddled with so many others who are preoccupied with only the evil in the world.
The news is one of the biggest things that can drag us down. They don’t seem to gravitate to hardly anything good, but love to show us the dirty laundry. And as most of us know, focusing on all that is going wrong can steal your joy and in time, can steal almost any hope for things ever getting any better. Fake news or real news, they both seem to carry with it an odor of negativism, pessimism and darkness.
Jesus says we are to be a glowing city on a hill, a hope to all who pass by us as they live out their life. We can’t be that if our daily intake is all sour grapes. We need to purposely and regularly seek to notice the good around us; there really are tons of it. Think of the blessings that our work represents to our life, the great people we know and care for, and the incredible upward journey the Lord has taken us on.
Our phones, tablets and TVs, they are very biased to reporting the evil and darkness in the world. We are to be the heralds of all that is good, starting with the Good News of our redemption, and then all that is praiseworthy since.
How are you going to be that lifting light in your workplace and in your home? Start with Philippians 4:8, end with Romans 16:20, and then talk about the stuff that’s wrong only when you have to, as His Word works in you, today.
Phil 4:8 (ESV) – Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Matt 5:14 (ESV) – You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
1John 4:4 (ESV) – Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Luke 10:19 (ESV) – Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
Rom 8:31 (ESV) – What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Rom 16:20 (ESV) – The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Listening to the Holy Spirit (Rhema):
Great is the adversary of men, but as the small speck to the eye of He who provides and gives power to all creation. To the world a great force, but to He who sits upon the throne, a passing stench in an everlasting plan, never to be again. Only for a time evil must breathe, but only as finite film on an endless sea. Do not fret for the evil of men, nor through men. It shall not last, for there is no contest that darkness can give light, for the Light is unhindered and exists, where darkness is only void, and has no substance. You are of the Light, and evil cannot contend. Waste not your attention to what has already been defeated. As Israel was released, so too of all mankind from the bonds of sin and pain – all mankind, but not all men. The wait is long in the moment, as men make their allegiance, but soon the judgment, and then the age to come, where true freedom without enemy shall arise like the sun.
Faith shall give you peace; fear steals. Focus upon Me. Seek my face and reject the burden of worry and fret. Is it not I who works all things for the Father’s will? Then do not fear the passing wind, it removes only the chaff, that the harvest is clean, and My house full.
