Thought for the Week

Sunday 7 March 2010

Third Sunday of Lent

God at Work?

I spend a lot of time worrying about my job.  Not about losing it, but rather about how I do it, and what it does to me as a Christian.  My job involves making a public policy case on behalf of my employer.  But is my view of what's good policy too influenced by what's good for my employer?  Or what about when the law can be interpreted in a number of ways, and the one I prefer isn't followed?  And what about the fact that I am being paid much more than a teacher or a nurse for something which appears to have considerably less social utility?

Now, I try to counter these concerns by only making policy arguments that I am genuinely convinced by.  I also argue my case as strongly as I can with my colleagues.  And I know that in an important way my department allows the company to survive and serve its employees and customers in a highly competitive world.  But - I still feel uncomfortable with all of these points.  And then there's the big one: what does my job have to do with God, especially as an ordained person?

During the week of accompanied prayer, I was talking with Fr Simon about this, as well as about my (perennial) struggles with prayer.  He listened patiently and then told me, very gently, that I had both things wrong.  The struggle with the work issues, he said, including the question of where God was in that, was itself prayer.  That wrestling with issues in the context of faith, however unsuccessfully, was an engagement with God.  It was a liberating thought.  Not an absolution, not an excuse to stop struggling, but a powerful reminder of where God can be in the workplace.  And, a reason to be engaged in the workplace as a person of faith. 

So the next time you worry about the ethics of your job - and your disconnectedness from God - take some consolation from the fact that in that very act you may be drawing closer to Him.

Revd Will Morris