Finding Purpose in Life's Ups and Downs - Part 1

God's people often fail to live by the values they know please the Lord Jesus Christ. Integrity is built on inner moral strengths that are enlightened and empowered by God's presence. When integrity fails, it must be cleansed and set right by repentance and forgiveness. Integrity depends on a moral character that's anchored to Christ Jesus by faith and trust.

Integrity helps us face aging. A woman in her late twenties expressed  concern that the wrinkles that were forming around her eyes had been caused by the unrelenting stress of her career choice and home life. We need to take inventory regularly to see if we have concerns about aging that equal this young woman's worries.

If our integrity remains uncompromised, meaningful work helps sustain integrity while providing freedom to have a purposeful life. Philippians 2:13 reminds us  that "God is working in you to help you want to do and be able to do what pleases him." When our lives are centered on Christ Jesus, we make choices that strengthen our integrity. 

Crisis and Compromise: Choosing God's Way - Part 3

It's not unusual to get stuck in a career before understanding what best suits your personality. Someone thought you were a good fit for a particular job; an opportunity opened up, and that's been your career. Integrity is compromised at the point of knowing that something else would have been better but that too many obligations exist to risk changing.

Those who endure these situations often come to retirement feeling compromised. Who you are and what you want is often in conflict with what you have to do. However integrity is invigorated by finding meaningful life purposes beyond a career. Choosing to serve God in ways that utilize your gifts and talents prevent lapsing into sadness or even despair.

Believing that God's provides opportunities insures you can feel confident rather than languish in frustration. A clear conscience, fostered by integrity and combined with hope, gives energy for doing what God provides. Listen to Proverbs 2:6: "The Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding." These blessings make life worth living. 

Work Choices: Are You Satisfied? - Part 3

Some people hate their work and feel sick just thinking about it. Others find meaning and purpose doing any type of work. For them, wasting time is out of the question. However don't confuse relaxation with idleness, for leisure is required for healthy living. Ecclesiastes 10:18 reminds us that laziness produces trouble. "If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the roof leaks."

If you despise your work, trouble and hardship may show its face unless you adjust your attitude. You can choose to change by allowing yourself to develop a positive attitude toward your work. You can refuse to be negative by choosing to see your work as God's provision for you and your family. Ask yourself, "How can I be helpful to those I work with each day?"

Pay attention to your co-workers. Determine to be a role model of the love and compassion God has shown you through Christ Jesus. He endured the Cross to save you and give you a life worth living. Would you begin demonstrating this attitude and see what God will do with it? 

Work Choices: Are You Satisfied? - Part 2

Most Americans believe work should be a source of reward by providing meaning and purpose as well as financial security. Linus Carl Pauling, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize was known for his carefree enjoyment of life. "I just went about doing what I liked to do." He liked to do almost everything, whether trivial or difficult.

Even in his nineties Linus Pauling possessed the enthusiasm and curiosity of a young person. Life was not easy growing up in poverty or working at menial jobs as a teenager and college student. Yet he found harmony between these trivial jobs and his work during the rest of life. He followed the encouraging advice of Colossians 3:23. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, for it is Christ Jesus you're serving."

God told Adam he would have to work to make a living, but he promised to  be his help and guide. When you choose to work as if working for the Lord, you're in a position to receive what Colossians 3:24 calls an inheritance from the Lord. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Work Choices: Are You Satisfied? - Part 1

So many people detest their work and yearn for an opportunity to make changes. Others shift the emphasis from work to leisure because work fails to  provide satisfaction. Some individuals in their mid-life years seek change by taking dangerous risks because of disappointment and burn-out with their work.

In Luke 12:16-21 Jesus conveys a story about a farmer who became wealthy, but because of a misguided attitude toward work and leisure, he failed to reap the harvest of his labor. Work and leisure fail to bring satisfaction and meaning when God is excluded from our choices. God's desire is to be included so we can feel blessed and enriched by him.

Permit yourself to see work as God's gift and as an avenue for expressing your love to Christ Jesus. He not only saves us from our sins and but saves us from negative attitudes that ruin our joy and happiness. Ecclesiastes 2:26 is instructive. "To the one who pleases God, he gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness." Seek to please God with all your heart.  

Re-creating Job Satisfaction - Part 3

Two objectives for working are to attain satisfaction and a earn a livelihood. The degree of satisfaction you experience is linked to your attitude toward work. A positive attitude will enhance your chances for satisfaction in other areas of your life. The happier you are with work, the higher your chances for finding meaning and purpose for your time here on earth.

What are you trying to extract from your work? Is it just a means to an end, a way to get the necessities of life and other things you want? Is work a channel for retirement and security for old age? I'm reminded of Jesus' parable about the farmer who reaped such an abundant harvest that he had to build new barns to store the overflow.

His attitude was to eat, drink, and be happy, but he failed to consider God's plan for his future. The point Jesus made is that your attitude toward work may not produce the rewards you expect. However deciding that your work is God gift to you can be the attitude you take to work and pass on to others. What could be more pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ?

Re-creating Job Satisfaction - Part 2

The attitudes you developed toward work as an adolescent most often endure for a lifetime. Some adolescents want to avoid work while others seek out employment. Those who to have a positive attitude toward work as teenagers tend to make better adjustments to the changes life requires during the decades of the forties and fifties.

For some adults, mid-life necessitates redefining specific goals for working. More than a few men and women reach mid-life and conclude they have been chasing the wind, as Solomon pointed out in Ecclesiastes 4:6. The attitude you possess toward work determines in part whether you come to judge your life's toil as meaningful or meaningless.

Without Christ Jesus giving direction to your life, what you achieve can be seen as pointless and ultimately worthless. Change must include an evaluation of your attitude toward work, the objectives you've achieved and whether you believe work is God's gift to you. God is at work in your life to show you his way and what you can be for him and others.  

Securing Contentment Through Generosity - Part 3

Most individuals are innately a bit self-centered. While it's normal to take care of yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually, most people retain a healthy concern for others. God generously gives us a measure of love and wisdom, which become the hallmark for making life joyful and peaceful. The way in which these attributes get expressed depends on our individual choices.

In the parable of the sower, seeds fall on four different types of soil. These soils represent a person's availability to receive the message from God's word. How much joy and peace we experience depends on the depth God's word is allowed to penetrate our heart and soul. Seeds fail to produce when the soil is shallow or when it's polluted and stifles the plants.

The seeds God sows in you are meant to produce love for others and wisdom for living. This takes place when we become vulnerable to God's purpose and plan for our days upon the earth. Let love and wisdom be the soil that covers your skills and abilities so these will generate the bountiful harvest to which Jesus refers in his parable.  

Securing Contentment Through Generosity - Part 1

I'm reminded that we spend our young adulthood learning the skills of a trade or profession. Then we learn how to apply these skills. In the mid-life years some people stop learning by getting stuck in stagnation, followed by death of enthusiasm for their work.

Listen to words from Jesus' parable of the four soils. A farmer went out to sow his seeds, some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. Plants sprang up quickly for the soil was shallow, but when the sun came up the plants withered because they had no roots.

God intended for all people to work as a means of creating a productive life. Meaning and purpose can be experienced when work is viewed as God's gift to us. Failure to do so may result in stagnation and self-absorption. You can avoid these negatives by sharing with others what you've learned at work, in the community, and in the world. This is the pathway for becoming unhooked from self-absorption. We are nurtured and refreshed by the power and strength that comes only from the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Burned Out or Blessed? - Part 3

Jesus told a parable in Matthew thirteen about a farmer who went out to sow his seeds, which fell on four different types of soil. Imagine this farmer walking through his field sowing the seeds. Some seeds fell on a well-traveled path comprised of hard packed soil. These seeds had no chance to get planted, so birds came and ate them.

When work is seen as having little value except for a paycheck, feelings of stagnation eventually replace a positive attitude that made work endurable. What you bring to the work that God can use to influence others gives work a special purpose. If our attitude is centered only on a paycheck then encouragement will diminish like the seeds the birds ate.

Coming to terms with who you can be in Christ Jesus and how that is passed on to others can make a  difference in the value you place on work. You're  encouraged to be committed as if working for Christ Jesus, for he is at work to activate his good purpose in you. With this attitude, you can sow seeds that yield a good harvest.  

Burned Out or Blessed? - Part 1

Just about everyone eventually gets to a place in their everyday work experience where change would be a welcome relief from the routines that have long lost their challenge. Even the rewards of safety and security of everyday work routines do not compensate for the absence of heartfelt meaning and purpose for how life is spent.

Working only for financial security and recognition may eventually result in mental and physical burn-out, a major cause of crisis for people in their mid-life years. Each person's core being, that part of the self that needs affirmation and nurturing, must be in harmony with the way life is lived. To be out of harmony creates displeasure with just about every aspect of life.

However making sweeping changes during mid-life may not be productive.  It's beneficial to present needed changes to the redemptive power and guidance of Christ Jesus. He will give wisdom and direction for any needed changes. I am confident that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  

Work: A Gift from God - Part 3

If you were asked to explain what gives meaning and purpose to your work, what would you say? A mother I know worked at a department store for years so her daughters could attend college. Personally, I worked as a young man so I could go to college and support my wife and daughter. God intended for work to give meaning and purpose to life because work is a necessity.

Some people see work as a drudgery and punishment from God. If this fits  your attitude, there will be little joy found in work, regardless of your position or salary. For work to be meaningful and purposeful it must hinge on an attitude that is compatible with God's plan for you. Work is a necessity for the development of integrity, self-esteem and independence.

Do you wonder why adult children of wealthy parents seek careers in public service? Creative work furthers God's plan for you while providing meaning and purpose that prevents stagnation and self-absorption from taking over. Colossians 3:23 offers this encouragement. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord."  

Work: A Gift from God - Part 1

The wonder of the human species is that we're perpetually in transition, even if changes exist unnoticed. This may be difficult to accept for those who appreciate constancy. God created us for transitions even though change can be disruptive. For those who have reached mid-life, disruptions may be a frequent occurrence whether at work, in the family, or in personal lives.

Turmoil is a time to make needed changes that were previously overlooked. What would you say personally defines you at this stage of your life? What are your major concerns? Jesus asked a related question in Matthew 6:25, "Is not life more important than food for the body, more important than clothes?" How could this question be re-framed for today?

Change could include redefining what you want to pass on to others who observe you, listen to what you say, or use you as a model for their lives. Jesus gave us this guideline: "Seek first God's Kingdom and his righteousness and all these other things will be given to you." This might be a difficult choice, but in reality there could be no better decision.