Finding God at the Office

Do we see God at the office?

Does He walk in the halls of business, where it seems that all too often there is but one goal, and that goal doesn’t include God?

Good questions these, and they are ones I have wondered about for most of my career. I’m one of those seekers you see, an individual who always wonders just exactly what he is to be doing with his life. For the most part, I’ve always worked at least part of my time in an office environment, even though I have traveled a fair amount for work too. Most offices that I’ve seen are not the types of structures that inspire deep philosophical debate and thought. Oftentimes they seem quite cold and impersonal, devoid of much personality. One would think God really wouldn’t like being cooped up in an office. Heck, we humans struggle enough with it, think God really wants to spend His time in an office too?

Ever since the turn of this century, when Americans experienced both attacks from enemies outside of our borders, and attacks on our very moral fiber from enemies within the office from multiple corporate scandals, we humans have started to really question just exactly what we are doing with our time. For the vast majority of us, we need to work to put bread on our table. Work, however, at least in the modern sense of the word, isn’t exactly full of meaning and joy, especially when its conducted in a drab office environment. So, we, oftentimes joylessly, drive off to our offices each morning in the hopes of finding some small kernel of meaning as we try and earn our “daily bread”.

How then, do we make sense of our workaday lives? How do we find the meaning? How do we see God at the office?

The answers to these questions, like most of life actually, can be found in the fabric of our everyday, mundane lives.

When groups are gathered together working creatively on a project at work, well, seems that could be one great place we’d find God. I’m banking that God, the ultimate Creator, sure does love it when His children get together and create themselves.

When folks are sitting around the break room just having a good laugh at something, seems like God is probably there too. After all, He created laughter, so he darn well probably appreciates a good joke as much as the next guy!

And, when a co-worker takes time out of his or her busy schedule just to listen to a colleague’s problems and life challenges, sure seems like God’s there too, being as compassionate as always. To show love and respect to another human being is something that God has hard-wired into all of us. While sometimes we can forget this, we always get opportunities in life to remind us that life is all about love, and that’s truly it.

We find meaning at the office when we find God. And God it turns out, is in every nook and cranny of every office building. We just need to keep our eyes peeled, and more importantly our hearts open to His touch. While offices are cold and impersonal many times, the people that inhabit them are flesh and blood, people with emotions and feelings, and joy and pain. We don’t have to all be doctors to be healers. Every day, the office presents us all opportunities to help heal one another. When this occurs, work isn’t so bad, and has a lot of meaning after all.

I’m writing this on a Monday, and I’ll admit, getting up to drive to that cold and impersonal office was not high on my list of life’s most enjoyable moments. But, turns out I did manage to laugh a little bit, to exercise my creativity some, and to listen to a fellow co-worker as he needed someone upon which to unload his problems.

All in all, not a bad day.

-The Minister