Checking It In?

How often does your spirituality come up in everyday conversations? Obviously, it doesn’t enter every single human transaction, but how often does it come up at all? Most often, God and spirituality is left at the door to our normal everyday lives. “Checked in” with the coat and the hat when we enter our normal workday. Our private, religious lives are not allowed to invade our daily, public lives. It would just feel too weird and uncomfortable otherwise, right?

Fruitless Endeavors

I tend to err on the side of optimism, believing wholeheartedly that I can make a difference in this world through my hard work. Although I believe this, I’m also constantly reminded that my best intentions can be thwarted by my own mistakes, the failures or indifference of others I work with, economic factors, and/or other environmental issues, like natural disasters, pandemics, and social unrest.

This may seem unfair, but it’s the nature of a fallen world. At one time, we were able to experience work at its fullest. Before the fall, the calling given by God allowed us to grow and prosper within a perfect world. After the fall, “thorns and thistles,” “labor and toil” became intricate parts of our work lives. Work became what we know it to be today

To Do Good

Once upon a time there was a young man who learned the art of the deal. He realized that a good real estate deal could reap so many financial benefits in so many ways that he built a lucrative empire on this understanding. He bought properties steeped in equity and then pulled out all the surplus cash and either lent it out to other real estate investors, or bought other deals ripe with equity. This strategy worked really well until the housing bubble burst and with it his dreams of grandeur. He learned a few huge life-lessons in the crash: 1.) Don’t overextend yourself, and 2.) Don’t work solely for the almighty dollar. 

This is a true story… It is my story. When I first started buying and selling real estate, I was driven by an insatiable desire for palatial homes, lots of toys, and big bank accounts. When I lost it all, I realized I wasn’t fulfilled by my previous motivations. Even though I had everything before the crash, I became nothing without it. It was a very hard lesson, but an extremely valuable one.

We Were Made to Make

In Genesis, after God made the earth and mankind, he hands over his masterpiece to Adam and Eve and requests that they not only create, but that they also subdue their lineage and oversee and govern the world around them.  This is God’s first call-to-action for mankind–fill the earth and subdue it. Ever since then, humans (whether they know it or not) have endeavored to complete this divine CTA.

Over the years of being a business owner, I have watched this innate desire take shape in all levels of work in my office and out at our various construction sites. There is a deep human desire to be creative and assertive. There is a great need to rearrange the raw material of God’s creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish.

All Work is Divine

Many people think of work as a “necessary evil.” It’s a means to an end, a way to survive, a mode to make money, put food on the table, or buy goods for our family. In this frame of mind, work becomes drudgery. Simply a necessary condition to get through this life. 

When we think of work this way, we take away its intrinsic dignity, creativity, and divinity. We carve it down to just a 9-5 slog. 

But, when we realize all work, as it was created, is (note I did not say, “can be”) divine. All work, whether it’s cleaning floors, building a wall, transacting a business deal, or conducting brain surgery is divine, regardless of how secular it appears.

In the Beginning Was Work

If you interviewed any of my employees or colleagues, they would tell you that I love work. I love the nature or it, the sense of it, the feel of it.  I love sinking my teeth into something hard and then creatively devising a plan that problem-solves the challenge and creates something better. A real […]

Every Good Endeavor

Whether you work in real estate, construction, education, law or technology… whether you have a corner office in a tall skyscraper in New York or a small desk in a janitor’s closet in Ellensburg, Washington, your job can impact others in very real, everlasting ways.

You don’t have to be called as a pastor to get God’s work done on this earth and we can call apply the gospel to our work.

Take the Leap

God’s very nature is Faith. He put us on this Earth with the belief that we will return, freely and willingly, to Him one day. And knowing the very nature of who we are… I only can only assume that it must take a lot of faith on His part! Even when we are unfaithful, […]

Your Spiritual Paycheck

Who do you work for? For most of us, that’s an easy question, right? It’s whoever signs your paycheck. But when you work for a person or company, your purpose and labor can only reach the heights bound by the laws of this earth. Now, what if your boss was God, and instead of just […]

Pocket-Sized Beliefs

“Far closer to the mark is the observation that the modern world has scrambled things so badly that today we worship our work, we work at our play, and we play at our worship.“ ~ Os Guinness How often does your spirituality come up in everyday conversations? Obviously it doesn’t enter every single human transaction, but […]