Are you one of the Walking Wounded?

Ephesians 6:5-7
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man.”

I do not think it is a surprise when I say we are living in some of the most precarious and unsure times that my generation and others have ever seen. In these times, and times like these, generations and people will be shaped by what is happening to them externally. Things like job loss, car loss, lack of food, and lack of clothing have an impact on how we worship, how we serve, and how we see God. While you may have been immune to any real strife for most of your life, you may very well be in the thick of it now.

When it comes to work and keeping jobs, companies are looking for ways to be creative and minimize the number of people they let go. Furloughs are one example. Furloughs allow a company to give employees varying lengths of time off from work. The people are technically still employed but can receive unemployment benefits during their furlough, which usually means a significant salary reduction. This allows the company to save a lot of money while keeping people employed.

These people are not represented on the unemployment list even though they receive unemployment benefits. These are the people I call the Walking Wounded—they are still employed but hurt by the economy nonetheless.

As Christians, we are continuously battling against temptation and sin, and we have to be constantly on guard. In this case in particular, we have to remember that just because our salary is cut, our effort is not.

Our best witness to the world is how we live our life. When strife comes, if we respond no better than those who do not know Christ, what does that say about our faith? We need to show up each day and work hard—not give just 80 percent because we have been given a 20 percent salary cut. We need to give it our all and keep our eyes on Christ to get us through.

Ephesians 6:5-7 gives us instructions for doing our jobs each day. It tells us we are to work as though we are working for Jesus—we are to give the exact same effort that we would give as though Christ were going to come in and check the results. Those are tough words to hear and even harder to live out. But it doesn’t stop there: Those verses also admonish us not to fake it—“not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers.” We are supposed to do it from the heart because it is the will of God. And in verse 7, it repeats basically the same thing only adding more emphasis—we are supposed to have a “good will” in how we work, and our work effort should be dedicated to the Lord.

I don’t know about you, but those verses are very convicting. I know the excuses can fly: “But you don’t know my situation;” “you don’t know my boss;” “you don’t know my company.” According to those verses, it doesn’t matter. Keep in mind that those verses were directed to slaves. Slaves were at the bottom of the food chain; they were not their own in any way. I'm sure they had it much tougher than us. But like them, as Christians, we are not our own either. We belong to Christ, and our obedience to his word is one way we show our love for him (Romans 6:16).

Today I encourage you to check your heart and your effort. At the end of the day, it is not about the company. It's about Jesus.

Nick Reddin is the Business Development Manager for Manpower’s Des Moines office. For more from Nick you can visit his blog at www.WorkExposedBlog.com.