Issue 015
What is God doing in your workplace? Can you see him working out
his purposes? Are you co-operating with him in his work at your
organisation?
These questions are not meant to be threatening or guilt-inducing but
thought-provoking. During this season of Lent, Christians are
encouraged to give up something in preparation for Easter. I doubt if
they recognise Lent in your workplace. You and your colleagues are
occupied with two thousand and three tasks, pressures, deadlines and
projects. But stop and think for a minute. Easter celebrates the work
that Jesus came to do. The cross was for him a workplace. The
Easter episode represented the heart of his life’s work.
The Easter events can be seen to start in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus is entering into a period of intense work. He goes forward to
pray on his own but asks his disciples to watch and pray. Their minds
are distracted, their pressures are great and they fall asleep. Invited to
share with him in His work, they fall asleep on the job, illustrating the
very failings for which Jesus has come to do his work.
Now go back to your workplace. Don’t make the mistake of thinking
that the organisation you work for belongs to the Board, the
shareholders or the Governors. It, like everything else in this world,
belongs to God. He is not a peripheral figure in our story. We are
servants in his. He is at work and inviting us to join him.
If you are too busy and pressurised to see what he is doing in your
workplace then, like the disciples, you are falling asleep on the job.
Lent, for you, will be a great time to give up sleep and to wake up to
his work.
Matthew 26: 36-46
36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. 45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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