Hello. My name is Daniel. I’ve been working in the hospital setting for almost seven years now. I specialise in Oncology.
As a Christian worker, one certainly faces many challenges. It can often feel hard enough to do a good job at work, let alone being a good Christian witness. But I want to encourage you to keep going as someone that seeks to glorify God in all circumstances.
The first thing that comes to my mind is how consuming work can be. Let me use my personal experience as an example. When a group of medics socialise after work, it is really obvious that we simply cannot deviate from medicine-related topics for more than ten seconds. We might briefly talk about someone’s boyfriend or their new car… but the conversation will quickly turn back to issues on the ward. While most will agree that one needs to be focused and dedicated to do our job well in order to be a good witness at our workplace, the danger, I fear, is that work can slowly become our idol.
Simply put, an idol is what we place at a higher importance than our relationship with God. It can be anything that takes precedence over our relationship with God. It can even be as simple and benevolent as a compulsion to dedicate our time to our work, or an obsession with getting an excellent end-of-year appraisal.
God commands us to put him first. As Exodus 20:3-5a says:
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.
The biggest challenge, I feel, is getting our priorities right. This is a statement that I often challenge myself with:
First I am a Christian, then a medic
(you can replace “medic” with the profession you are in)
Following through with this is certainly not easy, but there are two simple measures that I hope to share with you today.
- Before you step into your workplace each day, pray. Even a short prayer before you exit your car (or bus/subway). Pray for strength, wisdom, and love. Strength, to be able to complete a long day of work ahead. Wisdom, to be able to discern what’s right and wrong, and to make God-honouring decisions. Love, to be able to love my clients and colleagues.
- Put on your phone calendar a recurrent reminder, perhaps a certain day every month for reflection. Reflect on your everyday encounters. Did I rely on myself to make those decisions? Did I honour God in them? How can I witness to my colleagues and patients/clients with my words and actions?
In the upcoming articles, I hope to share some practical examples of difficulties I have grappled with over the years; and how the Bible has helped me in these scenarios. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul shared these wonderful encouragements to his readers,
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14
I hope you can see that I am not writing as someone that has “made it”, but rather as someone who pushes on despite previous failures so that my life can be found to be pleasing and honouring to God. I hope you can join me in this journey.
