After taking a break for the holidays I’m back with a series of posts on resolutions to start the new year. Please feel free to comment and share your own resolutions for 2012. Next week, I’ll get back on the saddle for my study of the book Not a Fan.
I never thought I’d be that guy. You know, the cliche of working 80 hours a week to get ahead, sacrificing family, recreation, and everything else for the almighty dollar. It’s never been about the paycheck or status for me. Yet…
I look back over my short career and I recall the call I took while in the recovery room after my daughter was born. I remember taking a call while on vacation at Disneyland. I’ve gone in to work Easter weekend, traveled on Thanksgiving, held meetings the Friday before Christmas. I often think more highly of myself than I ought. I’ve tried to create job opportunities yet have turned down actual opportunities.
On that last one, it’s weird for me to think back a year ago that I actually was expecting to move and take a new job. All my “fleeces” seemed to check out. Then I interviewed. “This is not a 9-5 job,” I was told. “You stay until the work is done. You will travel a lot. And it might not be the best thing for you with a young family.” Gut punch. Could it be what I thought was a golden opportunity actually wasn’t? So I turned it down. And the year since at work has been one challenge after another, filled with uncertainties, additional demands, and stress. A lot of stress.
But I learned something. I learned that I really have no control over my career. I strongly believe that God brought me to this job. So He’s the one really in control. And the sooner I accept that, the sooner I can let go of that stress, not face the uncertainties with fear, and respond to demands with diligence and joy.
So one of my resolutions this year is to not get ahead in my career, but instead to get behind. To get behind God. Let Him lead. I work for Him after all.
“So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?” (Ecclesiastes 3:22)
“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.” (Ephesians 6:7-8)