It's so easy when I spend 40+ hours in one
place to put my identity and my hopes, and maybe if not to that extreme, my
daily comfort, self-worth, and happiness on my work, my performance, and on the
opinions my colleagues have of me.
But thank God that He is faithful to me. I
lose my way and I get distracted and forget that my life, every part of it, is
meant to point to Jesus for people to see. Matthew 5:16 says, “let your light
shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to
your Father who is in heaven.” I know that Jesus was mainly talking about doing
good deeds for others, but I think this includes doing good work in your job.
In all things when we do good, we give glory to God.
Because I’m not perfect, I will fail to do that, and in those
times He uses those parts of my life to point myself back to Him.
Last week I had to give a presentation to
get approval for a change we're making on one of our products. I clearly didn't
know what I was doing, even though these presentations are standard and common,
which made me feel even more like a complete idiot. I was embarrassed and
worried about the people who saw and reviewed it, knowing that they probably
considered me as not up to par for someone at my level. For about a week my
heart really struggled as I reminded myself that my self-worth isn't based on
my work or on other people’s opinions. I know that is the truth, but because of
my sin and my pride, it’s not easy to let it be true in my heart so that it
defines how I respond to these situations.
Today I had to give another one of these presentations for a
different project. It was a totally different story. I felt and spoke
confidently, I definitely knew what I was doing, and I walked out of the room
smiling inside. I could have easily just patted myself on the back and gone on
to find confidence in myself at this job, but nope, God wants to show me more
of who He is so that I put my confidence in Christ. Which, to be honest, is way
better.
For about five minutes after the presentation, the word that
stayed in my head was “redeemed.” I had bombed my first presentation, and had
now redeemed myself with how I did on my second. I felt amazing and it was a slightly
euphoric feeling, to know that even though I did horribly and embarrassed
myself before, I showed myself and everyone in that room that maybe I’m not a
sad excuse of an engineer after all.
And with this elated feeling, what God revealed to me is how great
is the redemption that is the heart of God’s work in Christ. If I feel this
great thinking that I was able to change someone’s low opinion of me (all
assumed in my head, of course), how much greater is it that despite my
sinfulness and ugliness in light of God’s perfect goodness, while I was still a
sinner, Christ, who is perfect and beautiful, died for me to change God’s opinion of me. He redeemed me.
Even more so, not only am I thankful that in Christ God redeemed
me, I am humbled because I could never redeem myself. At work, yes, I can
redeem myself in front of my colleagues. I can do the job and put in the effort
to show people that I am a decent engineer and not a waste of resources. But
when God is the judge, nothing I can do or say will ever be good enough to
change my status from sinner to saint. Only by the blood of Christ am I washed clean of my mistakes and sins from the past, and only by the
righteous life that Jesus lived and credits to me am I able to stand before
God as a saint.
