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| Is it reasonable to think this meal would be created without a plan? |
We can be led by the Spirit in the workplace, and good things can happen spontaneously. But we can also "study to show ourselves approved unto God, as workmen who need not be ashamed" (II Timothy 2:15), and studying is something we do ahead of time, with intentionality.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the critical role Scripture plays in living out our faith in the context of the workplace. But this requires more than reading a few devotional Bible verses before we leave for work. Taking time to think about how God's Truth can be intentionally "fleshed out" at work on Monday morning requires a bit more focus.
When was the last time you sat down outside of your work time and studied how you might "flesh out" your faith in the context of your job? Do you have a plan for your faith-work connection? Have you studied how you might do your work “as unto the Lord,” as though Christ were going to drive the next car you fix, live in the next house you clean, or be a passenger on the next airliner you pilot?
Perhaps you have studied how you might improve your golf swing. Very good! I'm sure the President does this, too. So why not study how you can improve your faith-at-work swing?
Can we be intentional and systematic about such things? I think so. And with this in mind, I'll be sharing some tools with you over the next few weeks that will help in this process. These are tools you can use to bring greater meaning to your work, in an intentional way, no matter what kind of work you may be doing.
I'll start with a critical concept I often share with Christian school teachers: the art and science of contextualization. By "contextualization" I mean putting smaller “pieces” into the context of a more significant "larger whole." When we do this in a certain way, in relation to a certain larger whole, we are able to bring more meaning to the "pieces" of our work than the "pieces" can possibly have by themselves.
I'll start explaining next week.
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