Should You Just Let it Go?

What bothers you in your work? Should you just let it go? For many things, we do just need to move on, but there are times when they may deserve more attention. So, how do you know which approach is best?

We need to partner with God for discernment in each situation.

God told Adam in the garden to subdue the earth and have dominion over everything in it. Do you think Jesus would just sit back and let something happen that he didn’t have an appetite to tolerate?

We have been given authority over the ground on which we walk. Including our work. When the time comes where it isn’t appropriate to just let it go, its time to take action.

Of course, I’m not claiming that we should get our way all the time, but I believe we put up with a lot more than we need to and a lot more than we were meant to. This is true both spiritually and in the natural world around us.

Are there patterns around you that you want changed? Any behaviors of coworkers toward you that could be toxic? Any projects or situations you want revitalized? I want to encourage you to seek God for direction and to prepare to take action.

I had a time in my career where I could sense that several individuals had distain toward me and they were often condescending in their tone toward me and others. It had become awkward at times and others could see the lack of teamwork and cooperation.

I finally realized that I had let it go on for far too long. Even more than one interaction should have been enough for me to speak up. I eventually did speak up and things changed almost immediately.

There are many tactical approaches to take, but simply pointing an issue out and humbly asking for a change may be all that is needed. But when you do so, don’t forget Matthew 7:5, which says to “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” This verse is truth for how we live in general, and it provides advice on how to approach others in correction.

Even if we don’t act perfect all the time, it doesn’t mean we cannot ask for behavior change in others. Sometimes just recognizing an imperfection of our own is enough to take the harsh edge off our request for the other person to change.

So whats going on around you that you would like to see changed? In my experience, the longer we let something go on, the harder it is to bring it up, and the weaker we look and feel in not doing so. Sometimes we just have to suck it up and rip off the band-aid.

We should always seek God in prayer for the interaction and for protection and blessing over the other person. We don’t always know what they are dealing with, but even so, it doesn’t always give an excuse for negative behavior.

We always want to do everything in love and humility, but sometimes we need to rattle the cages.

Will you take the authority you have been given in Christ? You own the ground you walk on. God gave Adam authority and dominion over the earth. Adam gave it to Satan when he sinned. Jesus died to restore us to God and He got the authority back for us.

The authority really is ours through Christ, so lets walk like it is. What are you putting up with this week that you need to take authority over? Seek to partner with God in prayer and get your next steps from Him.

Faith in God’s Resources, Not Our Own – Ep. 7

In This Episode:

This episode discusses how we need to walk by faith in God’s resources, not our own.

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Episode Transcript:

Opening

On today’s episode, how we need to walk by faith and God’s resources and not our own.

You’re listening to Your Faith At Work with Dr. Ryan S. Howard, a podcast to inspire and equip you to partner with God in your daily work. Visit your YourFaithAtWork.org to learn more and download your free copy of 21 Days to a New Workplace You.

Episode

You don’t have to study the Bible for long to come across the idea that God wants us to give the best in everything we’re doing and He wants us to plan. He wants us to have a strategy. He wants us to work hard in what we’re doing. But you will also find that we are not called to have faith in those things. We’re not called to have faith in our efforts only. We’re not called to have faith in our experience or whatever resources we can muster up.

We are called to have faith in the Lord in what He can do, but we still have our part to do.

Gideon’s Army of 300

To demonstrate this truth, I want to turn to the book of Judges, chapter seven, where Gideon goes up against the Midianites. God called him to lead a tiny army against 135,000 Midianites. He started with 32,000 men and God said that was too many. He told Gideon to give a test and to send the ones home that are afraid.

Then 10,000 left and went home. Next, God gave another test and there were only 300 men that remained. Gideon was not very excited about the situation and it took some convincing on God’s part, but Gideon eventually walked forward in faith and confidence that he was going to be able to defeat the army with God on his side. He trusted God and walked in faith with that.

Relying on God’s Resources

We see that he wasn’t relying only on his resources, what he had and what he could use that he brought to the table. He had to walk by faith in what the Lord could do. He had no choice.

How often do we have a situation, a circumstance, a relationship, or a project that just seems overwhelming and we don’t know how we’re going to do it. But we feel a conviction to move forward with it and that God has us where he wants us to be.

You can be confident in moving forward and walking in obedience to what God has given you to do. God has a plan and we need to walk by faith in him and his resources. We need to plan, we need to analyze, but we don’t want to do it so much that we “plan” the Holy Spirit out of the picture. We still need to leave room and we need to let God lead. We need to let the Holy Spirit lead us in Christ and to what He has for us to do. We still need to give our absolute best. We still need to plan. We still need to have a strategy. We still need to think about how we can best approach things, but we need to walk by faith in what God’s going to do alongside of us.

Confidence in the Lord

We can have our confidence in our trust in the Lord and what He wants to do. Trust in Him coming alongside us to co-work with Him to get done what He has put in front of us to get done.

Whatever comes to us in our work, whatever comes to us in our life, God has provision for us to get through it. To come through it with what He has planned just like He did with Gideon. He made sure that he was relying on God and His resources and not Gideon’s own resources and just the men there.

Just like Gideon, we need to walk forward by faith in what God can do.

Closing

Thanks for listening to Your Faith At Work with Dr. Ryan S. Howard, if you enjoyed this podcast, we’d love for you to subscribe, share, and leave us a review. Be sure to visit your YourFaithAtWork.org to download your free copy of 21 Days to a New Workplace You and remember, God wants to partner with you in your work every day.

Confidence in Your Work – Ep. 6

In This Episode:

Our confidence must be in God and His promises. This episode reviews 4 important lessons we must learn from Caleb and Joshua in the Bible.

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Episode Transcript:

Opening

Where do you find your confidence in your work? That’s the topic of today’s episode.

You’re listening to Your Faith At Work with Dr. Ryan S. Howard, a podcast to inspire and equip you to partner with God in your daily work. Visit your YourFaithAtWork.org to learn more and download your free copy of 21 Days to a New Workplace You.

Episode

There are many things that we can find our confidence in. It could be our work experience could be our skillset, it could be just things we know or the relationships we have. Whatever it is, there only one ultimate thing that is the best to have our confidence in.

Caleb, Joshua and Moses

To learn where our confidence should be, we can look at a story from the book of Numbers with Caleb, Joshua and Moses. There are four lessons that I want us to take away from this quick story.

This story is when Lord talked to Moses and told him to send spies into the land of Canaan, which He going to give to the people of Israel. This is the Promised Land that’s been talked about for many years, since the time they came out of Egypt. So Moses got the 12 spies, one from each of the tribes, and sent them into the land. Caleb and Joshua are among these spies.

So the 12 go into the land and they check it out for 40 days. They came back and they start giving their report. They brought the whole congregation of Israel together. They started giving a negative report and Caleb interrupted them. He said, “we can do it, let’s go up and take the land and occupy it.” And the other spies interrupted him and started to talk negatively about the land. They talked about how they saw giants in the land that made them look like grasshoppers. They claimed the giants would kill them and they shouldn’t go. All the people of Israel started to agree with them and saying that they shouldn’t go and that they should go back to Egypt. They even questioned why Moses “brought them out there to die.” They all became very doubtful.

Ten of the 12 spies were agreeing with the negative report and the people started to agree with them and rebel. Caleb and Joshua said that the land was exceedingly good land. They said that God delighted in them that He will bring them into the land and would give it to them. They said the Lord was with them.

They said do not fear the people in this land (Numbers 14:9) and the people rebelled against it. They didn’t want to do it.

Four Lessons

There’s four lessons here.

The first is God was their confidence. Caleb and Joshua were saying that the Lord was with them and to not fear the people in the land.

The second is the circumstances didn’t change their confidence at all. The circumstances did not look good. It was a fair assessment of the circumstances, but it ignored what God had said.

Which brings us to the third point. They trusted what God said in the beginning in Numbers 13:1, God said He was going to give the land to the Israelites and that was that. Caleb and Joshua trusted that. They went and did an assessment of the land, brought back the report and that’s what it was. But they trusted God with what God had said. He said He would be with them.

The fourth lesson is that they were bold to speak their conviction, even though they had taken an unpopular position. They were not scared. In fact, it was not only the 10 spies that were against them, it was the whole congregation of Israel that had risen up and was rebelling. But that didn’t change their willingness to share the unpopular position and to say the truth of what God had given them in their heart to say.

What About Us?

So turning to us, what’s our confidence? Is our confidence just in some external thing or experience, whatever it may be. Or is our confidence in God? In His abilities through Christ, what He can do with us. Are we going to look at our circumstances too much? Of course we need to analyze them and know what’s going on, but are we going to trust in those plans or trust in the Lord. We need to keep our trust in the Lord and what He said and not be afraid to take an unpopular position. We need to be bold and walk out the conviction that God puts in our hearts.

Closing

Thanks for listening to Your Faith At Work with Dr. Ryan S. Howard, if you enjoyed this podcast, we’d love for you to subscribe, share, and leave us a review. Be sure to visit your YourFaithAtWork.org to download your free copy of 21 Days to a New Workplace You. And remember, God wants to partner with you in your work every day.

3 Reasons to Partner with God in Your Work

Should you rely on God in your work every day? We know God partners with people in the Bible, but does He operate that way today?

 In this post, we will explore three reasons for you to partner with God in your work every day.

1. Partnership with God is the Biblical Model

Work is a significant theme throughout the Bible and can often be overlooked. When you read the Bible with an eye for work, you can see that it is everywhere.

Working together with God is a common thread throughout the Bible. We see it in the work of Noah, when God gave him the plans for the Ark, and we see it with Joseph when God revealed how to prepare for a famine.

God clearly partnered with His people throughout scripture and wants to do the same today.

It goes without saying that the work we partner with God in doing must be righteous and honorable to Him. But beyond that requirement, the Bible makes no distinctions in the kind of work people should partner with God in doing. He wants to partner with us in our daily work just as much as in our volunteering and our church-related work.

The Bible also says a lot about the quality of work we should do and how we should do it.

2. Paul Explicitly Says to Partner with God

Paul writes that we are God’s fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9). He even shows how it can work by giving God the credit for the growth while we do the planting and watering (1 Cor. 3:6-7).

There is a clear role for us to fill and a clear role for God to fill. Could you imagine if you prayed for rain so your garden could flourish but didn’t plant anything? Would you expect anything to grow?

Ephesians 2:10 says that we are God’s workmanship and that He prepares good works for us to walk in. God is always working on us and on those around us.

3. God Has Infinite Wisdom and Knowledge

James 4:2 says that we do not have because 1) we do not ask, or 2) we ask with wrong motives. Our motives shouldn’t be to get ahead for our own glory, but to glorify God and steward what He gave us well.

Wisdom is the right application of knowledge and God has wisdom He wants to share with us for the unique situations we encounter every day.

In the Bible, Solomon was a man who sought God for wisdom unique to his circumstances. In 1 Kings 3:16-28, God gave him wisdom on how to determine which of two women was the real mother of a baby.

The Foundation of Fellowship

In order to have a partnership, you must have a relationship. Following Christ is not about memorizing the right answers and just living morally. It is about fellowship and intimacy with Jesus Christ.

Partnering with God in our work and life is no different. Working with God is much more than just applying principles. We must prioritize having a strong relationship with God.

We spend a lot of time in our work. Why would God want to waste that opportunity?

Do you seek God for how to handle situations in your work regularly? How can you partner with God in your work this week? He is ready and waiting to get engaged and share the unique wisdom He has for you and your work.

Podcast Trailer – 30s

Your Faith At Work Podcast:

It can be hard to connect your faith to your daily work. Each week, Ryan S. Howard provides insights into how you can fulfill God’s purpose and calling through the work you are already doing every day. As you listen to this podcast, you will be encouraged, inspired and equipped to live out everything God has planned for you in your work. If you want to partner with God in your daily work, this is a podcast for you.

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