The GEO Principle
First Two Pages

1
Bring God to work 

Lots of people bring their lunch to work, or a briefcase, or a laptop computer, but how many people think about bringing God to work? Anyone could, although it seems few people do. 

Most working Americans spend half their waking lives -- or more -- on the job. That’s a lot of time to be keeping God at bay. If God is important in your life, then he should be alive in the place where you spend a good portion of your time, on the job. Yet it is common to think of God as a sick child or a pet, something that is best kept at home.

Many people who share fellowship and a sign of peace at Sunday worship go to work Monday morning determined to get ahead no matter what that means for the people around them. Others work all day promoting the products of a hedonistic culture, making sure to quit by 5:30 so they can get home in time for evening services or choir practice.  

While it’s common today to divide life into distinct periods of faith-filled living and secular living, it wasn’t always like that. A century or more ago, when a significant portion of the population lived in rural areas or in small towns, far fewer people had a choice about when and where to live their faith. If you live where you work, as did nineteenth century farmers and shopkeepers, there isn’t much decision to make about living your faith at work. If you have any faith at all you are going to live it at work because the distinction between home life and work life is inconsequential. When your farm is your home, if you are living your faith at home, you are living it at work.   

Today the decision about where to live your faith is much more pronounced. Like a wedge, industrial, commercial and technical progress over the last century has put distance between home and workplace; participants in today’s workforce confront a real decision about where to live their faith. If you had asked a nineteenth century farmer whether he brings his faith to work, he would have given you a puzzled look; the question simply would not have made any sense. Today, however, such a question is very real. Are you bringing God to work? If not, why not? 

Nearly everyone works in America. Stay-at-home moms work 24/7; students know that learning is serious work and many senior citizens pour tremendous effort into volunteer work. But the question about whether to bring God to work resonates particularly with people who have a paying job, people who go somewhere to work, people pursuing careers and corporate success. Every day, on their way to work, employees make a decision -- consciously or subconsciously -- about whether to bring God with them.  

Faith, of course, is a great gift; if you are living your faith at home, you know what it can do for you. Knowing God is the way to know purpose in life. Faith brings inner peace; it guides your interaction with others; it gives you the moral compass to make difficult decisions, and it gives you the fortitude to persevere through difficult situations. All of these benefits can be useful in the workplace.  

If you were to go camping in the woods, and you had a really good compass, you wouldn’t leave it at home. You’d take it with you. If you work and you have faith, you are like that camper. Just as it seems obvious he should bring the compass with him into the woods, it is clear that you should take your faith with you into the workplace.