REFLECTIONS

The Workplace

      Off to the workplace to begin a new day. It feels like every other workday. Comrades will be there assuming their duties, telling stories of weekend activities, complaining about the boss, and how something should be better than it is. Same old stuff that happens every workday. But maybe this one should be different.

            The workplace serves a purpose. It’s the place to earn a paycheck that provides for the family and makes life better for them. In reality, most workplaces seek to make life better at least in some small way even if the motive doesn’t always feel like it. But providing something to make life better than it might otherwise be is the key to success for almost every workplace. And the roles you and I play in the workplace contribute to that worthy cause. But the workplace may be something more than the place to earn a paycheck.

            The study of John chapter 17 brings pause for reflection. Jesus is alone preparing to face the events he came into the world to face. Alone with God, he first prays for his Father to be glorified, after all bringing glory to God is what life is ultimately about. Then Jesus prays for his disciples. They live in the world; and it’s a tough place to live because of the evil one’s influence over it. But they are in the world, not of it. His teachings have helped them see that the meaning of life is not measured by the world. In his commentary of the Gospel of John, Dale Bruner describes it clearly:

             “Disciples are sent ‘into the world,’ into the very reality whose roots we abhor but whose souls and persons we are to adore. The world is our goal, not our source; our place of work, not our measure of worth; our Mission, not our Messiah; the persons whom we are to love and, yet, much of whose motives we are to distrust. Not easy combinations, but an exciting and challenging mission, requiring all the wisdom we can get from Jesus and from his gift of the [Holy Spirit] to the Church.”[1]

             The world is not our home; but it is the workplace we are called to. It is the place we are to reveal the love of Jesus Christ to the world and all its people. That’s what Jesus came to do. That’s what he called his disciples to do. And that is what he has called us to do too.

            When you live out of the love of Jesus you are reflecting the Savior. And when you reflect the Savior…

 You are the light of the world,

Richard+

www.reflectingthesavior.org

Click here for Printer Friendly Version