I was frustrated, angry, and disgruntled. After receiving my 1% pay increase, I hated my job, and was beginning to hate my boss.
If money was a motivator, I was no longer motivated, and begin to work like it too.
Considering I spent most of my waking hours at work, I also begin to hate my life.
My work was boring, my routine was mundane, and considering it wasn’t enough to pay the bills or afford a decent place, it was also in vain.
I lost sight of why I was even coming to work.
My performance appraisal was evident that I wasn’t a model employee, and by my 1% pay increase, I was evidently a mad employee.
Then I realized, I wasn’t working for my supervisor, I was working for God.
“and all, whatever ye may do — out of soul work — as to the Lord, and not to men,” Colossians 3:23
Well rather, I was supposed to be working for God, but I was acting as if I was working for my supervisor – someone at this point I loathed, so my heart and my mind was no longer in it.
But I loved God – or at least claimed to love Him. But if I did, I would have kept His Commandments and taken Colossians 3:23 to heart.
So my attitude about my supervisor and my job had to change.
I could no longer go on despising my boss. How could I claim to love God, and hate my boss, whom I see 5 days a week? (1 John 4:20) True to His Word, it is impossible to love God and hate anyone, including my boss. To say that I can, would make me a liar and also a dishonest employee.
I also had to quit despising my job and complaining about my work. “ and all, whatever ye may do in word or in work, [do] all things in the name of the Lord Jesus — giving thanks to the God and Father, through Him.” Colossians 3:17
So I looked at my boss’s office and thought, what if that was God’s Throne? Would I be delighted and prompt to do anything God Asked me to do? Of course. Would I complain about my assigned tasks? Of course not, I would gladly ask for more. Would I be late? Absolutely not.
With this revelation, when I was tempted to sleep in, I was reminded of Proverbs 6:10-11 and again in Proverbs 24:33-34 (funny that is repeated) “A little sleep, a little slumber, A little clasping of the hands to rest, and thy poverty hath come as a traveler, And thy want as an armed man”
With recent layoffs in my area, this is not a far stretch.
I was then given a task in my inbox that put me to the test. Since I was now working for God, I was now working on my project promptly and peacefully. I refrained from asking “clarifying” questions, which was really a guise to gauge how little effort I needed to expend. No more, “do you want this, do you need that?” I was just going to do it, and give my boss more than was asked of me.
My pay still isn’t great, and it would be great if my job was my career. However, I am striving to be more like Christ, which means in this instance I have to act more like Paul, “I have known both to be abased, and I have known to abound; in everything and in all things I have been initiated, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want.” Philippians 4:12
As an under-employed layoff survivor, I think that verse was written for me.
yalandarose 