7 Sept 2017 - What Are You Doing at Work?

A Practicing Christian ch 9 - What Are You Doing at Work?

This chapter/reading hits on a very good point - how we represent our faith and protect our families and marriages while we are at work.

First, the author speaks to the manner in which we are viewed by our coworkers and how that influences the way our faith is viewed, discussing both the coworkers that go out of their way to test you because of your faith as well as the coworkers that become interested and engaged in what you believe.

Second, the author discusses how we socialise at work and how we engage in our work relationships so as to protect our marriages and prevent ourselves from initiating an affair.

Questions

1. What challenges to your Christian walk do you face at work?
1. For starters, I try and do everything in by own strength. Medical school is tough, y'all - far tougher than I realised - and the competition is at another level. You're taking the top 10-20% from undergrad and pitting them, not against the masses, but against each other. Suddenly, that high B is at the bottom of the class...
2. Secondly, in any science field there is going to be a measure of opposition to faith, especially Christianity.
3. Thirdly, I'm currently in my psych rotation. The psych world is notoriously opposed to the Christian world at a worldview level.
2. What steps can you take to overcome these challenges?
1. I really need to re-frame how I lean on God, trust in God, and listen to God for better insight in where I stand and how I need to study to excel
2.  (and 3) I need to dig deeper into my relationship with God, to make sure I stand on solid footing and to be better encouraged and empowered to outwardly live my faith.
3. How can you reduce the temptation, or even the perception, of an extramarital affair at work?
1. This one hits home, because I've walked partway down this path once before. I cannot express enough how important it is to be cognizant of how one engages with one's coworkers (what one is saying and what the unspoken communications one is sending are saying) as well as the state of one's marriage and how one is feeling in that marriage.
2. The biggest factor, after being aware of your work and home communications and relationship statuses, is to communicate your dissatisfactions to your spouse in a loving, Godly way. If you take care of your marriage, you will be far less likely to try and seek satisfaction in relationships outside your marriage.

1 Timothy 4:1-6

Here, we have Paul's encouragement to Timothy to be aware of those bringing false teachings - in this instance teachings that forbid the good things given by God in marriage and for food - and that, in pointing out the falsehood of these doctrines to his fellow believers, he would be a good servant of Christ.