When You’re Not Appreciated – Ep. 11

In This Episode:

This episode discusses how to handle times when we are not appreciated or recognized for the work that we do.

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Episode Transcript:

Opening

On today’s episode, what to do when you’re not appreciated in your work.

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

I’m sure that you’ve had a time in your life or in your work where you were not recognized for something you had done or people didn’t appreciate what you had done.

Jesus and the Lepers

This reminds me of the time when Jesus healed the 10 lepers. This is in Luke 17 starting in verse 11. He healed the 10 lepers. He told them to go to the priests and they’d be cleansed and they were, all of them were healed. But only one of them came back to praise Him and to thank Him for what He had done in verse 16.

Now the other nine, their lack of appreciation didn’t distract Jesus from his mission. It didn’t make Him regret what He had done. It didn’t make Him change Him mind or Him approach on anything. It didn’t phase Him at all with what He was there to do. His mission wasn’t to get the praise and recognition of others. Of course not.

There are times in our work when we certainly don’t feel appreciated or recognized. It may happen all the time to some of us. It could come through criticism or ripping on a little piece of something that you have done or a small piece of feedback that overshadows the rest of everything you’ve done that’s been great.

Stolen Recognition

Well, I remember a time when someone actually took credit for something that I had done in an effort that I had led. They were congratulated in notice sent out to a big organization and they didn’t redirect the praise where it should have gone. Which would have been to a team and me that had done the actual work.

I was pretty angry with this for what had happened and I couldn’t think of a good way to bring it up without looking bad and just having it not go the way I wanted it to. So I just decided to let it go. Well, God saw the kind of work I did. He knew He could trust me to give my best. But the thought did cross my mind that, well, maybe I shouldn’t even do this work if it’s not going to be appreciated.

True Motivation

Well, that made me reflect on my true motivation. Just like Jesus wasn’t phased by the lack of recognition, I didn’t want to be phased by that either. So when these things come up, it’s in these situations that God can use it. It’s what happens internally inside of us that matters and what he cares about.

The key is to not get discouraged. It may surface things that we don’t like about ourselves. That’s natural. That’s okay, but we need to run to Christ as soon as we see it. We need to give it to the Lord and we need to learn to lean on Him and let our confidence in our identity be built up in Him.

What Work is Really About

Our work is about God. It’s not about us. So in these kinds of times we can think about what God might want to do in a situation and how He wants to work on us. Your reward is with the Lord and Him seeing what you’re doing and knowing that you’re giving your best. Our reward is not from people or from the recognition of others.

So the next time you don’t get recognized or you feel unappreciated, remember Colossians 3:23, that we are to work with our whole heart and we work for the Lord and not for man.

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.

What is Faith? – Ep. 10

In This Episode:

This episode discusses what biblical faith really is and how we can walk forward by faith in our daily work.

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Episode Transcript:

Opening

On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what biblical faith really is.

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

When it comes to your faith at work, there is an obvious term that we want to be crystal clear on the meaning of, which is faith. So today we want to talk a little bit about that, what it means, and how we can walk forward with faith and what God can do with that faith. Now to start off faith is really just trust or confidence. It’s assurance of something, a conviction that it’s true. This is from the Greek word pistis is the noun form in the new testament that’s used over 240 times. This is just confidence or trust in something or someone, the Lord, and everybody has faith in something. We have faith or trust in a doctor that we go to see, we have faith or trust in a chair that we’re going to sit in that is going to hold us up.

This is sort of a practical faith, but what are we as Christians called to have faith in? While there’s a supernatural faith that as Christ followers, we’re called to have faith in God and His abilities, what He can do. We serve a God that created the universe out of nothing. He created everything and He knows what’s coming at us. An example I like to give is a kid jumping in a swimming pool. Now the kid is looking around, may not know how to swim, but the dad is saying, “jump in the pool, I’ll catch you.” And the kid may be scared, doesn’t know what’s going to happen, but he trusts his dad, so he decides to jump in the pool in the dead, catches him and everything is great. And the more he does that, the more he’ll trust his dad and what his dad says and it goes from there.

It’s the same with us. We trust in the Lord and the more we step out, the more we trust Him and the more we get to know Him. God is all knowing. God is everywhere. He’s outside space and time. He knows the future. He has a plan for you and for me. There’s no reason we can’t trust God with everything, but there’s two points I want to make here. Number one, the kid ignored his circumstances. He looked around and he was scared, but he still stepped out because he trusted his father and he took action. He didn’t just trust him and then walk away knowing that he actually jumped. He actually jumped into the water for his dad to catch him. And it’s the same for us. We need to walk forward with confidence and what we believe about God and His word and what He says about us, regardless of the circumstances around us.

God is with us, no matter what we’re doing. But we need to take action. We need to actually jump into the pool. We need to actually go forward with it. So faith comes from God. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that, and we have faith in Jesus Christ for our salvation, and we have faith to trust God for the promises. We can look at Hebrews 11 which is called the hall of faith. It gives an incredible summary of the lives of great men and women in the Bible that experienced outstanding victories. They were willing to walk forward by faith. Noah, there was no rain, but he trusted God would send the rain, so he built the Ark. Abraham and his wife were very old, but they trusted what God said, that they would have a child and make many nations from them.

Esther risked her life to save her nation. She was called to do that. And Moses left Egypt without a map. And then they ended up coming to the Red Sea and God split the Red Sea. So they walked forward in faith and trusting in the God that they served.

So what about us today? What about your work?

Do you trust God that He has a plan for you and your life and your work? Do you trust Him with to use everything for your good? There are a lot of difficulties that come up in our work and can we trust Him with that? Of course we can, but we need to be able to walk forward. We know that trust is there. We need to walk forward in faith. So take some time this week to reflect on the One that we have faith in. Pray. Ask him to grow your faith. Read the testimonies in the Bible to grow your faith and know that you can walk forward in boldness and faith in the God we serve.

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.

Small Change, Big Results – Ep. 9

In This Episode:

This episode discusses why we should use small changes and how they can lead to big results.

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Episode Transcript:

Opening

On today’s episode, how you can use small changes to get big results.

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

If you’re anything like me, you’ve had times in your life where you’ve had this big motivation to have this big change and you’re going to get these big results. Maybe, for example, you decided that you wanted to start exercising or you want to read a book a week. So you commit to it and you start doing really well out of the gate and then you miss a day or you don’t feel particularly motivated and somehow it starts to back off achieving that and then all of a sudden it’s been a week or two and where did that go? And you forget about it and move on.

I want to suggest that instead of thinking about these big changes, it’s better to think about a small change. What little tweak can you make?

Small Changes in Golf

If you’re a golfer, you will understand this a little better, but it’s simple. If you look at a golf swing and where the ball goes, whether it goes straight down the fairway or it goes way off to the side, it’s just a little difference. It could be in the grip of the club, it could be in the club head position, but just a tiny little angle difference or the ball position by less than an inch can make the ball go different places, hundreds of yards down the fairway. Off to the right, left or wherever it is. It doesn’t take a lot of change.

The Key to Small Change

It’s the same when it comes to other stuff in our life that we want to have big results from. We need to make small tweaks, small changes. So one of the keys to being able to do this consistently is to have the change that you’re trying to make be Small enough so that you won’t have mental resistance to it.

It won’t be something you’ll want to avoid or it won’t be something that you need to be especially motivated for. It won’t be reliant on you having the willpower in the moment. It’s something small enough to where you’ll just do it with no resistance

The goal is consistency and making it a habit. For example, if you you want to read more, you can just read one page a night before you go to sleep. That’s only a couple of minutes for one page at night. Or if you want to drink water, just start by drinking water when you get up in the morning and before you go to bed.

The idea is to just start small.

A Challenge in Two Areas

There are two areas in particular that I want to challenge you in with your faith at work. A challenge to make small changes. One area is reading the Bible and the other is prayer.

If you already read the Bible every day, that’s great and perhaps you can just think about what you can do to enhance that. And if you already pray every day or at least do pray consistently think about what you can do to enhance that also.

Reading the Bible

If you’re not particularly consistent with these, I want to challenge you to find a small change you can make to get in the word of God every day. Whether it’s reading just one chapter, or a Proverb, or to read the Bible until you get to a verse that stands out to you and God speaks to you. You can even use an audio Bible.

Whatever it is, what can you commit to that you can be mindful of and not have so much resistance to? It’s just something that you can easily step into daily? The idea is that you would grow from there, but you have to get started and get consistency. You can leverage small change to do that.

Prayer – Conversation with God

The other area that I want to really challenge you in is prayer. If you’re not praying, can you pray for one minute? Prayer is conversation with God. Get get alone with Him and just pray with Him. Have conversation with him and invite Him into your work. Ask for His favor. Ask for Him to be with you and go with you throughout your day. Ask for Him to speak to you throughout the day. Just spend one minute at least and start there.

Make the Change and Build Habits

The goal is to build these habits. These will be central to your faith at work and to integrating God into your work. Central in partnering with Him in the workplace.

Is God bringing anything to your mind right now where you can seek to make a small change? Make that change this week and watch for the big results that God will bring.

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.

4 Lessons from Peter Walking on Water

The Apostle Peter was a man who stumbled, but never failed to follow Jesus. His life was filled with many lessons that can encourage us today and give us hope for our own walk with Christ.

This post will consider 4 specific lessons we can learn from when he walked on water with Jesus in Matthew 14:25-31.

Lesson 1. Peter had great faith

Peter wanted to take the risk. He wanted to walk on the water – it was his idea (Matt. 14:28). He stepped out in faith when Jesus told him to, even though it didn’t make sense to his natural understanding.

What about you? Where do you need to step out in faith? No matter how hard Peter thought about it, he couldn’t have come up with a way that he could walk on water. Sometimes we need to take the step God is calling us to before we can see how it will unfold.

Where are you staying safe in the boat instead of stepping out in faith onto the water?

Lesson 2. Peter’s doubt came from his natural eyes

Peter doubted when he looked at his surroundings and took his eyes off Jesus. It can be far too easy to take our eyes off Jesus and to become consumed with our circumstances.

When we only look at what is around us, we can’t see things the way God sees them. When Peter looked at his surroundings, his faith withered and he began to sink. The same happens with us today. When we keep our eyes on God, we can walk by faith.

What about you? Is there a situation that makes it easy to take your eyes off Christ? The first step is to recognize it and give God time to give you His perspective on things.

Remember, it’s always about Him and His desire to make you more like Christ. He will use it to build His Kingdom and spread His influence.

We may not always see how, so we need to trust Christ. That is what it means to walk by faith.

Lesson 3. Peter turned to Jesus when he started to sink

When Peter sank (failed), he turned to Jesus, not back to the boat (his old way). When we encounter problems, it can be easy to just focus on the situation in front of us or on how our natural self may want to handle something.

When Peter realized what was happening, he reached out to Jesus in desperation. Jesus saved him and He desires to do the same today.

We are safe when we reach out to Jesus for help, but it doesn’t mean everything will be easy or that there will be no problems.

What about you? Where do you need to turn back to Christ for help? Don’t waste time thinking you need to fix something before you turn to Him. Reach out and grab for His hand  – He is ready and waiting for you.

Lesson 4. Jesus helped Peter immediately

Jesus didn’t leave Peter to fend for himself and figure out how to get out of the situation caused by his doubt. When Peter asked Jesus to save him, Jesus immediately reached out His hand and caught him (Matt. 14:31) and will do the same for us today.

Jesus also gave Peter an aspiration when He asked him, “why do you doubt?” (Matt. 14:31). The simplicity of this question from Jesus makes it clear just how unnecessary Peter’s doubt was.

What about you? Where do you doubt? Where can you reach your hand out to Jesus? Just turn to Him and He will help you immediately.

Summing it up

Peter is a great example for us today. He wasn’t perfect and failed more than once, but he always followed Christ. He didn’t let his own shortcomings get in the way or slow him down.

We would do well to walk in the boldness and faith that Peter had. How can you do that today?

What You Believe is What You Get – Ep. 8

In this Episode:

This episode discusses the physiological connection between what we believe and what we experience.

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Episode Transcript:

Opening

On today’s episode, the importance of what you believe.

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

Do you actually believe that God cares about your work? That your work matters? That your work has purpose and that God really wants to partner with you in your work?

Why is this so important? The Bible gives us directions on what we should believe. Of course we want to walk according to that. walk by the spirit and not by the flesh. The Bible has a lot to say about this topic, but today I want to give some physiological support.

Your Brain Can Help You

There’s a part of the brain called the RAS, the Reticular Activating System. This is back by the brain stem and it’s the part of a brain that has two functions. The first is that it wakes you up and the second is that it filters information from your unconscious mind into your conscious thinking. It does that based on your intention, based on what you’re doing, what you believe, and what you’re thinking about.

It’s basically filtering evidence for whatever you believe about yourself or whatever you believe about a situation. For example, if you believe that God doesn’t care about your work and your work doesn’t matter, your own brain is going to filter information and evidence from your subconscious thinking into your mind to give you evidence that you’re right. It’s wrong but if you’re thinking that way and believing that way, then that’s what you’re going to get. That’s what you’re going to be thinking about that’s coming into your mind.

On the other hand, if you think that your work matters to God and that He cares deeply about the minute little details of everything that’s going on and that nothing is arbitrary, your brain is going to help you with that. It’s going support you and filter through evidence that shows you that that’s true.

After we come into a relationship with Jesus Christ, believing correctly about our work and believing that God wants to partner with us in our work really is the entry point into connecting your faith to your daily work. To actually living out the design and the purpose and the calling that God has for you on your life, especially as related to your work.

It’s not just about this positive thinking as only thing. This is feeding our mind on in our beliefs on what is right, what is good, and what is righteous. What is the Bible is telling us to do? To set our mind on things above. Then we let our brain, the way God designed it, to work for us and help us in that. The way God designed us to work. That’s incredible.

Always Be Looking

Another thing that you can do to ensure that you’re living out this connection of your faith and your work is to always be looking for things that support that God is in your work.

God is all around you in your work. His hand is everywhere. He has a plan for you. He has a plan for others in your work around you. He knows what’s going on in their lives. He knows what’s going on in your life. He knows the difficulties with the projects and the people you’re working with.

Always be looking and you will be shocked at what He can show you and what you will see that He’s doing. The answers and the solutions and the next steps that He has for you.

So as you go throughout your day-to-day and this week, make sure that you see yourself as someone who partners with God and always be looking for God’s hand around you in your daily work.

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.