Finding Christ in the Civil Service
I've always struggled with work. Being a typical Type A Personality, I'm always striving to prove myself. It was easier for me to focus on the task at hand, than to think about the people I'm working with.
But that was not how Christ meant our new lives to be. He didn't come to build the best table as a carpenter. He did not even come to do the best healing or exorcism. As we see in Mark 1:34-39 , Jesus was determined to preach and seek the repentance of sins and the coming of the new kingdom -- i.e. to save people. His main focus was people, people like us. The tasks themselves were only a means to an end -- they didn't amount to much if they didn't get the people to embrace the good news.
How then can we be faithful Christians in our workplace? This question has bothered me since I started work 7 years ago. For a long time, I took the extreme view that work only provided us with the means for a living -- earn some money, help the family, contribute in my tithes. Essentially, working in the civil service just meant giving my minimal and that I should instead devote my energies to "church work." Though I worked long hours, I strove hard to keep work separate from the rest of life. I didn't want my work to "creep" into my church time. To be honest, though, I didn't do much church work either -- I ended up resisting work, and indulging myself.
Vicious Cycle of Work & Guilt
That philosophy didn't work very well. I felt guilty about working hard. Sometimes big projects would come along and I struggled to find the "balance" between my work and my "personal life". The catchphrase of the day was "work hard, play hard". The harder I worked, the more guilty I felt, the harder I played to "compensate". The guilt also meant that I tried to do more in church to help ease that guilt. That vicious cycle drained me of purpose and I came to hate work.
As the years I went by, I began to slip greater and greater into sin. I didn't understand why work had to be so hard. I didn't know how to "balance" between the demands of my work, my personal life, and God. It was an impossible juggling act as work became more and more demanding, and I felt the increased pressure to perform year after year. I felt bitter and angry against God and the church. My work in church also became empty and a mere duty.
I believe many of us face this vicious cycle at work.
My Work Matters to God
A friend passed me a copy NavPress' Your Work Matters to God before leaving for the UK. Reading the book changed my life. I had always thought that work was cursed and hence necessarily toilsome and meaningless. My daily experiences seemed to confirm this understanding of work. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. God was a worker. Work was part of his divine plan right from the beginning -- one that he saw was "good".
Learning to treat my work as important to God, as part of his "ruling the Earth" changed my attitude to work. It made me an earnest worker. I no longer saw working hard as some selfish motivations for personal gain. No, I was working hard because God ordained it, and He wanted us to love it.
Paul the apostle saw hardwork as an absolute duty. If one did not work to earn his living, he did not deserve to be part of the body -- members of church were to avoid him. So as responsible Christians, we can't but help serve our "masters" (employers) as hard as if we were serving the Lord himself.
If work was divine, and ordained by God, I came to see my abhorrence of work as something akin to rebelling against God's divine plan.
Of course, some of you may see work as two distinct types -- that there's working for earthly master and there's working for the Lord in the church (i.e. gospel work). But Paul made no such distinction. We had to work. And we had to give it our best shot because we're ultimately working for God.
Bringing Christ to Work
The issues are complex, but I grew to appreciate what Paul said as I learnt to see the place of Work in God's plans. If we all retreated to our churches and did "church work", who would be God's witnesses out there in the world? The harvest field is wide, but the workers are few indeed, because we do not see our workplaces as part of God's plans.
Which brings me to the first point I made -- in our workplaces, are we more concerned about the tasks at hand, or the people? This fundamental shift in the way I saw work meant such a difference to how I woke up each morning, ready to face the challenges at work.
There is no separation of our lives before God. Whether we are at church with fellow believers, or at work with non-believers, we are still doing God's work -- calling people to the saving grace of the Work of Christ on the Cross. This means we must make Christ attractive in the way we behave at work and in church.
What Does it All Mean in the Civil Service?
What I say above applies to all areas of our lives. Nonetheless, being in the civil service has its own sets of issues and considerations. As civil servants, we can take comfort in the fact that Christ established all authorities on Earth to help him rule this world. We are part of that authority. Without stable, efficient and law-giving governments, life would be so much the worse for everyone -- materially and spiritually.
As civil servants, we do not strive for large personal monetary gains. In many instances, we live quiet lives, behind counters, computer screens, without much sizzle and excitement. And that is exactly what Paul advises the Thessolanians -- to live quiet godly lives, minding our own businesses.
Sometimes, I do struggle with whether I should leave the civil service and join the "prestigious" ranks of bankers and consultants, who rank way up there in the social and pecuniary ladder. But on reflection, I do cherish the quiet life I lead as a result of the career I've chosen. It means I can really focus on the people in my workplace. It means I can pray for them and think of ways to make Christ attractive to them.
Concluding Thoughts
We are made by God, for his pleasure, and to do his good works, which he has prepared in advance for us to do. Our whole lives are a living sacrifice to him.
Over the years, I am learning how to give up my struggle with work to God, bringing it under Him and His plans. We can choose to live foolishly "balancing" the different parts of our lives, or we can give our lives all to Him and ask him to run it as a complete Whole, sacrificed to Him.
Bim
22
Jan 05
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