God's Incredible Gift

He was known as a man who manifested a passion for the supremacy of God throughout his career. During his last meeting with his executive team, he led the team in a prayer of praise and thanksgiving, exalting God’s name. For a brief moment he tore back the curtain hiding God’s Kingdom, to show his leadership team that God had been revealing himself in every failure, success, struggle and joy.

As he praised the Lord, he reminded the team of twelve true, good and wonderful things about God:

1. God is Great – Their accomplishments were just tiny a reflection of the greatness of God’s creation.
2. God is Powerful – All power belongs to God, and God is powerful enough to move his greatness to accomplish whatever he wills. They didn't have to fear the future.
3. God is Glorious – God is the source and essence of all the beauty that they created.
4. God is Victorious – Their current success was but a foretaste of God’s victorious triumph over all that is evil in the world. 
5. God is Eternal – Although companies come and go, God is unchanging and endures forever. 
6. God Owns All Things – God who possesses everything, freely entrusted to them the raw material, business processes, people and technology that they relied on. 
7. God is King – God is exalted over all things. God is supreme over every aspect of the business, their competitors and their customers. 
8. God is the source of riches and honor – Their wealth, socio-political status, physical situation and spiritual standing didn’t come from shrewd business deals, good decisions, good timing or hard work. Every success, every penny they earned, and every penny they gave away came from the bountiful goodness of a promise-keeping God. 
9. God is Wise – God provided the wisdom to the people, who developed the business processes and technology which made them successful. 
10. God is the source of Strength – God’s invisible hand was the source of strength behind all their greatness and success. 
11. God is merciful – Even though they didn’t deserve to be helped, God had granted them success. 
12. God is joy – Joy can only be experienced when our desire is focused on God, not on ourselves or our accomplishments. 

Standing in awe of God, he closed his prayer with a petition that God would grant them a heart solely devoted to keeping God’s commands, statutes and decrees. He knew that apart from God, their hearts would go after anything but God. He knew that it was only the work of the Holy Spirit that could keep their hearts loyal to God. 

As you look at what you have accomplished – how would you describe God, whose invisible hand is on your life?

Then David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly:

“O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, may you be praised forever and ever!  Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength.

“O our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name! But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us!  We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace. (1 Chr 29:10-15 NLT).

Praying for your Workplace

Today you have a fantastic opportunity to joyfully demonstrate your confidence in God ... by praying for your workplace and your co-workers.

You are God’s child! You are bound to God’s love and goodness which transcends everything happening in your workplace. Your workplace can’t rob you of your peace, joy or strength. God is the one who satisfies your soul. It is your privilege each day to nurture your relationship with God through prayer.

Your life is anchored in Christ. Standing on this firm unshakeable foundation you are able to pray for your coworkers and your workplace. Your prayers are a bold declaration of your faith that God knows how to keep you wherever you work. Your prayers are a gentle testimony of your quiet hope that God will make all things right. 

When you pray, you are praying to the Lord of Heaven’s armies. You are praying to the only one who reigns supreme with complete and great power. This means you don’t have to be the messiah who tries to redeem your workplace. God is active in your workplace today! 

When you pray, you are praying to the Lord who placed the leaders of your company in their roles. This is a mystery that is hard to fathom. 

When you pray for the leadership of your company you are acknowledging that each leader is a glorious gift of God to this world. These are men and women created in God’s image. God delights in each one and has blessed them with unique skills and talents. They break God’s heart because they do not know him. As you pray for them and the decisions they make, God will fill you with his love for them. 

Prayer connects you to God’s grace. As you pray for the brokenness of your workplace God will give you the wisdom to live with grace. 

Prayer for your workplace and your coworkers will keep you from succumbing to the temptations to worry, to feel regret, to feel self-important or self-righteous, or to follow the behaviors around you. 

There is a slice of heaven beaming brightly in every workplace. When you pray, God will open your eyes to see the many manifestations of his grace and righteousness where you work, and your attitude will shift to praise for who God is and what God is doing.

Praying for Stressful Workdays

I know that a struggle today will result in music tomorrow – Max Lucado (A Gentle Thunder)

What do you do in times of crisis? What do you do in stressful situations at work? Where do you turn when innumerable cares or exasperating troubles threaten to overwhelm you? What do you when your manager dumps five piles of work on your desk and wants it done for the next morning and you already have plans for the evening? What do you do when reworking the presentation will take four hours and you only have two hours to do it in? 

These are the times when we need to keep our eyes focused on God and seek his wisdom. No crisis is beyond His control. As Christians we aren’t exempt from fear … But we have an intimate, personal relationship with the God of the universe to whom we can take our fears. Our faith in God is not a ticket to escape life’s difficulties or stressful situations. Yet in our weakness we know we can take our eyes off the stressful situation and focus on our loving all-powerful God. 

If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2 Chr 7:14). 

When I blindly race head first into a stressful situation I make stupid mistakes. My joy, peace, patience, gentleness, lovingkindness and self-control fall on the ground, and I trample them into the mud. But when I press the pause button, and take the time to remember God’s character and God’s promises; when I humbly cast my life on his mercy seeking his grace and power eventually a new song of joy and praise wells up in my heart. 

Instead of blindly rushing forward when faced with a stressful situation, if you humbly ask God for wisdom He will replace your fear with the wisdom you need and bless you with peace and joy. 

You can expect God to work in the middle of your stressful situation! God is faithful! God is unchanging! God will stand behind his promises! 

Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful. (2 Chr 20:20). 

Take the time to narrate your predicament to God. God always has the time to listen to you. God listens with kindness and compassion. When you admit your weakness and powerlessness you are affirming your confidence in God. 

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:19) 

Throw yourself on the mercy of God. You don’t need to prescribe how God will resolve your situation. You just need to ask God to demonstrate his power, his righteousness, his holiness and his grace. When you throw yourself on God’s mercy, you are claiming your seat in the spectators’ gallery to watch the Lord work. 

With a symphony of praise anticipate God’s manifestation of his steadfast, divine love in the middle of your circumstances. Praise anticipates in faith God’s fulfillment of his promises through his sovereign power. Praise declares your trust in God. 

As God’s child learning to trust and obey while seeking God’s wisdom and glory is of greater importance than merely surviving your stressful circumstances. 

This kind of faith doesn’t spring up in the middle of a crisis. This kind of faith is cultivated over a lifetime of quiet obedience to God and trust in His word throughout the routine of everyday life. 

Praise the LORD, For His mercy endures forever. (2 Chr 20:21 NKJV) 

Praying for Wisdom

Do you find yourself today launching out into a new venture or are you returning to what you were doing yesterday?

Whatever you find yourself doing today, God promises that he will generously give you wisdom if you ask. God graciously offers you wisdom for both simple jobs and for very complex tasks. When the disciples needed people to take care of the routine tasks of the new church they looked for individuals who were filled with wisdom (Acts 6:1-3). 

Praying for wisdom starts with worship and requires humility, trust and curiosity. 

Wisdom requires humility 

When Solomon’s new career started as King of Israel, Solomon didn’t launch his career by seeking information on what a King was supposed to do, or by pursuing all the status symbols of his new role. You don’t find Solomon at the local bar celebrating his new job, or at the chariot dealership seeking out the latest sporty chariot, or with his realtor seeking out a vacation property. Instead you find Solomon leading his people in worship. 

In humility, Solomon publicly worships God. He praises God for having placed him in his new position. Privately, when there was only Solomon and God in the room, Solomon thanks God for appointing him as ruler, and acknowledges that the people he leads are God’s people (even though he knew that not all of them had placed their faith in God). Solomon was the same humble person in public and in private. 

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. (James 3:13) 

Wisdom requires trust 

Having acknowledged publicly and privately that God had appointed him and prepared him to be King, Solomon demonstrates his trust in God by praying for wisdom. At this time in his life, Solomon’s heart’s desire is to behave in a manner worthy of a child of God. God answered Solomon’s prayer for wisdom. 

We read in Proverbs that Solomon discovered that Wisdom wasn’t far away, but was standing in the street corners. Solomon learned that all he had to do when faced with a choice was to humbly trust and obey what Wisdom was saying. 

Today we would say that Wisdom is calling out in the lobby of every office building, store, restaurant and transit stop. Like Solomon, we need Jesus to touch our ears so that we can hear what Wisdom is saying. Then we need to trust that what Wisdom is saying to us will bring joy and peace in our lives and in the lives of those around us in our workplace. 

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:5-7) 

Wisdom requires curiosity 

I would suggest that praying for wisdom also requires a spirit of childlike curiosity. Curiosity looks beyond the information needed to do a task or to answer a question. Curiosity looks to the interconnections and relationships lying behind a task or question. 

When two prostitutes came to Solomon accusing each other of having stolen their baby, it is Solomon’s curiosity which looked behind the accusations to understand their hearts. Understanding their hearts enabled Solomon to make a wise decision. It is Solomon’s curiosity into understanding the way things are built that enables him to be the project manager for the building of a magnificent temple. One can read more about Solomon’s curiosity in the book of Ecclesiastes. 

This is the world that God created. While we can glean a lot of information about the functioning of our world, only God fully understands every aspect of this world, and all the interdependencies that allow us not only to survive, but thrive on this planet. As the Creator, God understands the principles of accounting, human resources or computer systems better than any person ever will. 

Would it not make sense to seek wisdom from the Creator himself to understand how each system, process, person, and tool that we work with can best be used to glorify Him? 

Wisdom is not just for us. 

When with humility, trust and curiosity you seek wisdom, your life becomes a rich blessing to those around you. 

After the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, she included these comments in her report: “How happy your people must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!” (2 Chronicles 9:7). When you perform your job with wisdom, most of the people around you will be happy, for you will be radiating God’s grace, peace and love. 

Your wisdom even brings a blessing to those people around you who are jealous of you. Jealousy is their choice, for God is freely willing to offer them wisdom if they choose to put their trust in the saving work of his Son, Jesus. 

Wisdom brings glory to God. 

When with humility, trust and curiosity you pray for wisdom, not only are you a rich blessing to those around, your life is glorifying God. 

The Queen of Sheba continued in her report: “Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the Lord your God.” (2 Chronicles 9:8). 

As you begin your new venture, or faithfully continue doing what you have been doing, will you in humility, in trust and with childlike curiosity: 

(a) Thank God for the kindness he has shown you for bringing you to this stage of your life? 

(b) Remember God’s promises? 

(c) Ask God for wisdom?