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 (2)
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.