Monday
Feb082010
21 Ways to Pray at Work
Monday, February 8, 2010 at 8:39PM 
There are some wonderful resources here to add a new level of significance and purpose to your daily work life! Remember that Paul admonished the Colossians saying, “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” (Col 3.23).
We spend so much time and energy in our work environment, why not invest that time wisely by taking the hours you spend at work to a deeper level of commitment?
Here's my input on some of the steps they share:
- The workday doesn’t start when you walk into the office, it starts when you wake up. Start by thanking God for the job you have.
- Ask God to bless the people among whom you work, and the place in which you work.
- Pray that God will make you a good steward of your time and resources of your company. As Christians at work we should offer a clear witness through our commitment to our work. Mark Twain once commented that you should "live such a good life that when you die even the undertaker will be sorry!"
- Pray that God will use your communication to communicate God's love and care for the people you interact with (whether that be your manner on the phone, the way you deal with a difficult client, or the tone of an email).
- A simple exercise is to choose to pray through your 'address book' or phone list. I do this - I take just 10 minutes each day and pray for a few persons on our company phone list. Amazingly I pray for each of our office staff by name every second week. It changes my interaction with them, and I trust that God uses my prayer to bless and help them.
- Be willing to pray for those who lead your organisation. Pray not only for them, but for their family and home lives. Executives often face great pressure. God can use you to transform their lives (James 5:16)
- Before meetings ask God to guide you and give you calm and peace. Let God guide your thoughts, your words and your interactions. During the meeting listen for God's guidance through the words and inputs of others. Be sensitive enough to hear God's voice, and brave enough to speak. Your voice mayy be the one that God wishes to use to change a situation or bring a solution!
- It is worthwhile praying that your organisation will be a just and good steward of the resources they have been entrusted with. Ask God to guide your leadership to make wise and generous choices that will help to transform society.
- Practice MBWA during your lunch break. What is MBWA? It is different from an MBA (Masters in Business Administration), MBWA stands for 'management by walking around'. Try to connect with as many people as possible in a sincere and significant way during your free time (remember not to steal time from your employer, so use our time wisely!) Friendships build trust and allow you to offer care, help and prayer to those in need. I can bet you there are many people in your sphere of influence who are longing for someone to connect with!
- In God's Kingdom few things happen in isolation - we were made for community. So, find likeminded colleagues to pray with during the week.
- When you have to travel for work pray that God will protect your family and give them patience. Pray that God will protect you and keep you from any form of sin or temptation, returning you quickly and safely to your loved ones.
If you have any ideas or inputs to share I would love to hear from you! How do you make the most of your workday as a Christian?
Reader Comments (7)
The beliefnet.com advice to ask God to bless your company's products and operations is a little simplistic. God can't bless bad products or companies that aren't honest or otherwise lack characteristics customers have a right to expect. This error probably underlies at least some of the ongoing faulted behaviors and products of companies that disappoint customers. A little wisdom will help prayers at work to serve the interests of God, higher interests than personal peace, continuing paychecks, and the blind eye.
To add to above--as you have probably read, categorized, and adapted to worldly understanding--God's blessing is in Christ; the world is Christ's enemy and the enemy of God-of-the-saints' interests; and indiscriminate prayer based on the understanding of low-level cubicle employees has nothing to do with the Church or its workings, being closer to the prayers of lab animals praying for their keepers and the occasional manager or scientist who wanders in than to the prayers of saints to the God of their head. The fact that a technique works, making life better for people in today's work world and therefore useful in the manner of medicine, doesn't mean it is authored by God. And the luring-in of persons who observe or believe this doesn't change the fact; nor can it put off the reward forever.
Mary,
Thanks so much for your comment.
All that I can say is that you and I clearly have quite a different approach to the Gospel of Christ. Central to my understanding of God's love is that it God loves all of God's creation, not just Christians or the Christian Church.
Based on my understanding those who already know and experience God's love have a responsibility to reach those who have not yet had the joy and blessing of knowing God's love in His grace. So, I work and pray for the establishment of God's Kingdom in every person and space of creation - not just for the blessing of 'the saved' and the protection of the few.
In scripture I see that this is the reason why Christ was incarnate (Luke 4:43 and of course Luke 4:19ff).
I shall pray for you and ask you to do the same for me.
Rich blessing in Christ,
Dion
Mary,
Here is a very encouraging quote that I found this morning that in some ways captures my perspective on prayer in the workplace.
Thank you for replying. I am sure you must be very busy with so many people calling on you to speak to them and so on. May I respond to your reply--"Central to my understanding of God's love is that God loves all of God's creation, not just Christians or the Christian Church" and which you support by "In scripture I see that this is the reason why Christ was incarnate (Luke 4:43 and of course Luke 4:19ff)"? Both these excerpts refer only to Israel--the other "cities" were in Israel and populated by Jews--and support that the ministry was to only Israel, a point stated openly by Christ himself according to the record we have in the Bible. (In the contrary example of the Samaritan woman, the point seems to be made again--the Messiah's reaction to her being based on her faith and his own nature and that of the father, not on a general availability of his ministry to outsiders.) Generally, everyone other than Jews--with occasional exceptions based on faith and partisan actions--seems to have been referred to as a "dog."
Perhaps you are basing your understanding on Peter's vision of the unclean animals or on the experiences of the apostle to the Gentiles--the scriptures you used actually support the opposite view to the one you put forth. The point I meant to make, though I appreciate the plight of cubicle life vs. faith and the necessity of having some kind of prayer life to manage, is closer to the line between world and Church that was expressed before there were Christian "nations." How do you manage to fit workaday Christianity and the other themes of your writings into the mind that issued these statements: John 7:7; 15:18, 19; & 17:14; & 1 John 3:13? Worldly interests of corporations and other people not subject to Church judgments can't really be called "Christian," can they?
Thank you for replying. I am sure you must be very busy with so many people calling on you to speak to them and so on. May I respond to your reply--"Central to my understanding of God's love is that God loves all of God's creation, not just Christians or the Christian Church" and which you support by "In scripture I see that this is the reason why Christ was incarnate (Luke 4:43 and of course Luke 4:19ff)"? Both these excerpts refer only to Israel--the other "cities" were in Israel and populated by Jews--and support that the ministry was to only Israel, a point stated openly by Christ himself according to the record we have in the Bible. (In the contrary example of the Samaritan woman, the point seems to be made again--the Messiah's reaction to her being based on her faith and his own nature and that of the father, not on a general availability of his ministry to outsiders.) Generally, everyone other than Jews--with occasional exceptions based on faith and partisan actions--seems to have been referred to as a "dog."
Perhaps you are basing your understanding on Peter's vision of the unclean animals or on the experiences of the apostle to the Gentiles--the scriptures you used actually support the opposite view to the one you put forth. The point I meant to make, though I appreciate the plight of cubicle life vs. faith and the necessity of having some kind of prayer life to manage, is closer to the line between world and Church that was expressed before there were Christian "nations." How do you manage to fit workaday Christianity and the other themes of your writings into the mind that issued these statements: John 7:7; 15:18, 19; & 17:14; & 1 John 3:13? Worldly interests of corporations and other people not subject to Church judgments can't really be called "Christian," can they?
Hello Mary,
Thank you for your follow up comments. Your perspective is interesting. However, our basic point of departure is quite different.
First, your approach to biblical interpretation is very different from mine. I think I understand how you use the scriptures based on some studies that I have read and conducted on a more literalist approach. But, I don't want to presume that I fully undertand your reasoning or your approach to using the sacred text. If you are interested in understanding my approach to the use and interpretation of scripture you might like to read a chapter I wrote entitled 'Why you can't simply trust everything you read' in the book 'What are we thinking? Reflections on Church and Society from Southern African Methodists' (Methodist Publishing House, Cape Town, 2008: 25-46).
Second, based on my understanding of what God reveals about God's nature and will in the scriptures I have come to the conclusion that God does desire to save humanity and creation. This narrative of God's gracious redemption runs throughout the whole of scripture. Of course one could pull out some 'proof texts' to support such a statement, but I would rather not.
Third, it is from this perspective that I encourage Christians to take their responsibility as agents of God's healing and transforming love seriously within the workplace. Our choices, actions and interactions are graciously used by God to bring about change when we allow God to work in us and through us to achieve God's loving will.
Finally, I would contend that your understanding of prayer may not be the same as mine. For me prayer is not only the activity of communicating words and concepts to God. Rather, a prayerful life is one that is wholly dedicated to God in Christ, seeking to live every moment as an act of loving worship for God and God's will in the world - true communication with God is ultimately true communion with God.
Rich blessing from Cape Town,
Dion