Loving Monday: What Are We Doing Here?
“Do you ever look back on the day and wonder what we’re doing here?”
Debbie closed the case file we’d been brainstorming and set it on her lap. She leaned back in the side chair and took a deep breath, and then just looked at me in that way of hers. The one with the light smile, knowing eyes. The one that always told me that she knew my struggle.
It was hers too, though it was a fight she fought much better than I.
“You know what we’re doing,” she said.
“I don’t,” I replied. “Not really. Debbie, if I made two lists — one of all the things that make my heart beat and one of all the things I do here every day — and pinned them up side by side on my cubicle wall, it would be a perfect list of opposites.”
::
She smiled and dipped her head, giving me permission to continue.
“I want to pursue peace, but my relationship with every customer is adversarial by design. I want to respond to people’s deepest needs, but I all I have is their entitlement. I want to extend mercy and grace, but I am constrained by statutes and contracts. I want to make people whole but I the best I can do is give them money, as though that will compensate them for things they just can’t have back. I write checks and send letters that Just Say No. I don’t care that I’m good at what I do. Why does God have me here?”
I’m an insurance claim adjuster. The two most frequent questions I hear every day are Where’s my check? and How do you sleep at night?
Debbie knew this. Though I’d be too dense to see His hand in it early on, God set the two of us on the same career paths. We walked together through training, promotions, downsizing, layoffs, and positions with a new company. And though we were part of two different churches, we shared with one another excruciating times of conflict and upheaval in our local fellowships. We were as different as two people could be, but God wove our lives together for a season.
She knew my struggle well. And as always, she saw His hand right away.
At last she spoke. “Don’t you see what He’s doing? I do. I see the relationships you have forged with the others here and the influence you have. He is working through you in your sphere in the office.”
The more I shook my head, the brighter her eyes twinkled.
“One day you’re going to get this.” She leaned forward and whispered, “We aren’t just here to adjust claims. We are here to advance the Kingdom.”
::
We continue with Loving Monday today as part of the ongoing book discussion over at High Calling Blogs. In this week’s portion of the book, John W. Beckett discussed the notions of calling, gifting and sphere and how they play out in the workplace.
He considered that despite our efforts to limit the term, calling in fact extends beyond the realm of strictly religious endeavors to include whatever vocation God would choose to call us to — athletics, arts, business or otherwise. He also discussed how our particular gifting enables us to excel in our area of work, and complements the varied gifting of our colleagues and teammates.
Finally, Beckett recognized the function of sphere, as did my friend. We operate best when we do so within the boundaries God designed for us.
Now, I might just get myself into some trouble here. Beckett got away with this discussion because he held it largely in the context of what businesses and their leaders can do to help their people best run within the boundaries of their calling, gifting and sphere. Beckett’s company has an in-depth interview process that helps ensure that they bring folks on board that are a good fit for the organization. Once they have the right fit, they might move an employee around in order to find the best position to enable him or her to excel. And they’ll go to great lengths to support those employees beyond just their work in the plant or the office.
But there’s a big part of me that rises up in the midst of these conversations and shouts out that our career goals and quest for job satisfaction are overrated.
Beckett provides a great model for those of us who might be business leaders wanting our faith and work to be bound as one. He operates on Biblical principles to support and respect and empower his employees and God has clearly blessed his business. I’d love to work for a guy like that.
Most of us won’t.
And frankly, most of us won’t work our dream job every day. We won’t be paid to pursue our greatest passions.
But baby still needs new shoes.
So I’m left asking this: What is a reasonable expectation for the believer from his or her job?
::
Beckett points to Daniel as a fellow who excelled in his vocation. Even as a captive in Babylon, he was promoted to serve as “ruler over the whole province of Babylon and to chief administrator over all its wise men. Later, Daniel’s effectiveness caused him to rise to key positions under other heathen kings.” (p. 97)
Daniel didn’t work his dream job.
He did not sit for a career assessment. He did not go to college to train for the job he always dreamed to have. He didn’t even pick a job from the classifieds and apply for it.
Daniel was a captive.
Even as a slave, he chose to excel. He chose to be the kind of person any employer would want to hire.
Daniel served heathen kings.
He helped the enemy of his own people to prosper. He furthered the cause of a people who spit in the eye of his God.
How did Daniel sleep at night?
Here’s where I get into a little trouble. I might just cross the line. I do not believe God called us to follow our dreams. I do not believe He gave us dreams or passions or gifts so we could pursue them.
I believe He gave them to us so that they would fuel our pursuit of Him.
Except to the extent that we are fulfilled in Him, I don’t know that our fulfillment and satisfaction are really of all that much interest to God.
::
My friend Debbie knew something of Daniel. She knew, like him, that the ins and outs of our daily work were not so much the point. She knew that we would sleep at night because we conducted ourselves in our daily work with integrity and in a way that gave glory to God.
Just weeks after that conversation, Debbie went home. While her cubicle fell silent, she fell into her Father’s embrace and all of heaven cheered as He whispered, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share in your Master’s happiness.”
Around her cubicle, those with whom she had worked would marvel that Debbie never had to hang a sign that said “I am a Christian.”
They knew she loved Jesus because she did her work like someone who loves Jesus does.
While she adjusted claims, she pushed the Kingdom forward.
::
Join in the discussion over at High Calling Blogs, with Laura’s post Blueprint.
Related posts:
Monica Sharman’s Snowflakes and Fingerprints
Glynn Young’s What Is a Person Worth?
L.L. Barkat’s Blueprints?
“I do not believe God called us to follow our dreams. I do not believe He gave us dreams or passions or gifts so we could pursue them.
I believe He gave them to us so that the would fuel our pursuit of Him.
Except to the extent that we are fulfilled in Him, I don’t know that our fulfillment and satisfaction are really of all that much interest to Him.”
I will be thinking on this and chewing it like a cow chews cud-for quite some time. Provoking thought. Thank you for such courage.
2010/03/01 at 4:04 PM
Oh, this is so good.
He is not so concerned with our outer work as He is with His inner work, is He? I love, love, love your thoughts on this one, Lyla.
2010/03/01 at 6:06 PM
Lyla,
You brought tears to my eyes when you spoke of your friend Debbie. From what I know from your posts before she was a wonderful lady who really set a good example and made you think. How wonderful it is to know that God has his hand in everything – even the smallest details of who is in our sphere of co-workers.
I do not really look forward to going into work alot of the time, but your post here gives me many things to ponder. Thank you once again for helping me see things in a different light.
2010/03/01 at 6:34 PM
Kathleen, thanks for the encouragement. I’m not supposed to squash our dreams…
Laura, you have it just right there: He’s more about His work in us.
Julie, thank you. Waiting to hear how things go for you in the deep end of the pool.
2010/03/01 at 8:42 PM
Wow. I guess we’re called to love Jesus, pure and simple. If that’s in place, we’re open to whatever God has us do or wherever He sees fit to place us. I can’t help but look back occasionally at all the unfulfilled dreams and wonder if I missed God. At the same time, there are many things I couldn’t have imagined, and I know God was in them. Now I believe God’s plans surpassed my plans. Much goes by the wayside and doesn’t matter, but there are still challenges. This isn’t so much about giving up as it is about being open–as was Daniel and your friend Debbie.
2010/03/01 at 9:09 PM
Not reading the book, but enjoying your posts. This made me think of the verse in Matthew 6:33 – “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Where is the focus? What is being sought after? Challenged, as always. Thanks.
2010/03/02 at 12:00 PM
Solveig & Nancy, you both have it there. Seeking one thing. Above all else.
2010/03/02 at 2:36 PM
“I believe He gave them [dreams] to us so that they would fuel our pursuit of Him.”
That’s another LL quotation that I copied onto an index card.
Sweet dreams.
2010/03/02 at 7:26 PM
I love to come here and be challenged and stimulated by your words. There can be so much emphasis on doing what you love, what you’re “gifted” at, etc., that we can forget about people like Moses and Jeremiah who served and obeyed even when they were not “energized” by what they did.
2010/03/03 at 5:24 PM
This arrested…
“Not really. Debbie, if I made two lists — one of all the things that make my heart beat and one of all the things I do here every day — and pinned them up side by side on my cubicle wall, it would be a perfect list of opposites.”
I think lives can be different (one person having a dream job, another person not).
And a single life can be different in different seasons. I do believe we can/should follow our dreams. But then there are seasons where that’s not the point. I hope to bring a little dream to every season, even if it’s a secret, quiet one that no one sees but me.
I loved your post even though it takes a different direction than I might have. Really good food for thought.
2010/03/03 at 8:13 PM
Thanks Deb.
Monica, then there was Ezekiel, laying on his side for 300 days or so. Talk about your dream job.
L.L., appreciate your grace in the differences here. And seems you perhaps said it better than I did — not so much not following the dream but that the dream isn’t the point.
2010/03/03 at 9:50 PM
And this is you, too….
“We aren’t just here to adjust claims. We are here to advance the Kingdom.”
I’ll never , ever, ever, EVER forget how we met last year. You know what I’m talking about. You advance it, girl. You advance it.
2010/03/03 at 11:00 PM
Lyla – this is a great post (although I confess I have not read this chapter). I really like your twisting the “dream” thing around to be the catalyst for pursuing God, rather than the thing itself. That is compelling, to think that we are given dreams to find God. Although that can get out of hand, too. (That’s the start of a big discussion right there!).
Some people are satisfied in their “sphere” and others feel that they are made for something greater- whether in that same industry, or somewhere else. Either way, I believe that ongoing struggle and tension is what our lives are made of these days. And it’s a fairly recent phenomenon. For thousands of years, up until the last few hundred, civilizations of people were born into their circumstances, and that was it. No one was given the luxury of career choice, or education, or “calling.” People just did what their parents did. That was it.
2010/03/04 at 5:16 AM
Jennifer, you make me blush.
Bradley, I think that’s really what’s eating me a little. It is a new phenomenon, and if I might say so, I think it’s pretty much a Western/US/middle-to-upper class phenomenon too. I don’t believe that the majority of believers worldwide would say they invest as much time, money and effort into chasing their dreams as many of us here do. It is a luxury.
I know God gave Abraham a dream, and took him outside to gaze at the stars, the numbers of which would rival his descendants. And a lot of Abraham’s story centers on that dream — waiting for it, getting ahead of God to make it happen, laying it down, picking it up again.
But even then, at the end of the day, the point was Abraham trusting God. The point wasn’t chasing the dream. Following his dream wasn’t what was credited to him as righteousness; his faith was.
I’m writing another post here; sorry for that. Wait, it’s my blog. I can do that.
Like Nancy said, we seek first His Kingdom. The rest comes with that. Our gifting, our passions, our talents, our competencies, our personality, our dreams — they all must be second, and we must be willing to submit them to His purposes.
Okay, done. Thanks for jumping in.
2010/03/04 at 8:49 AM