Remembering God Is with You
How do we become more aware of our workplace as a primary place of worship? A helpful way to remember that God is with you at work is to pause before your workday and prayerfully bring to mind that God is always present. Of course, God being with you is true in a broad sense because one of his central attributes is his omnipresence. God is not just always there (wherever there is), he is always near to you. Another way to remember God is with you in your workplace is to recognize that your physical body is actually a temple where the Holy Spirit dwells. God’s temple is not in some building but in our living, breathing bodies. As followers of Jesus, whenever we enter our workplaces, we are bringing with us the temple of God.
As the apostle Paul reminds us, “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). The Holy Spirit’s indwelling within us has far-reaching implications for our ethical behavior as well as our worship posture. When we embrace this truth, it transforms us as workers and reshapes our workplaces. Our workplace presence means that God is present not only around us but within us. God is with us to shepherd us, to guide us, and to give us wisdom. No matter what our work involves, we are never left to do it alone. A stay-at-home spouse changing diapers and carpooling the kids is not working alone. A teacher grading a student’s test is never alone. A business owner seeking a loan at a bank is never alone. Nor are any of these workers dependent on their own wisdom. A plumber is never alone on the job. God is with them to receive their worshipful work and to provide wisdom, insight, and strength.
The Holy Spirit not only indwells us but also desires to empower us for our workplaces. God’s presence means that when we go to work, we are encountering holy ground. How might we begin to reframe our Monday place of worship as holy ground even though it may often feel far from it? Let’s remember that when Moses encounters the burning bush, it is in his place of work. What is Moses doing? He is shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep. In that workplace encounter, Moses hears God say, “Do not come closer. Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5).
Denise Daniels and Shannon Vandewarker write in their book Working in the Presence of God, “Walking the hallways in prayer, saying a blessing over the office doors in your building, praying for the meeting rooms, the cafeteria, the production spaces within your workplace, the routes where the company cars drive, and asking God’s blessing over what happens there—these are all ways of recognizing your workplace as holy ground.”
In Moses’s ordinary workplace, God shows up and is worshiped. You, too, have burning bushes in your workplace, if you are willing to slow down and become more attentive to God’s presence there.
When we recognize that our workplace is holy ground, we can better practice the presence of God with us. In my place of work, I have placed visual reminders to help me remember that God is present. As I type these very words on my computer, I remember that I am sitting on holy ground. For you it might be a visual reminder of a Bible verse on your computer screen. Maybe it is something that you put on your daily calendar or a picture on your desk. Perhaps before each daily appointment or meeting, you pause for prayer. Maybe in your daily schedule you build in two or three short breaks in which you remember a verse of Scripture and offer up a prayer of thanksgiving to God. We can sharpen our attentiveness to God’s presence by remembering he is with us every time we walk through a door in our workplaces. We all need ways to regularly remember to practice the presence of God throughout the day. Be where your feet are, for that is where God is!
Your workplace is holy ground because God is with you and because the work you do unto him and for the good of others is itself a beautiful act of worship. Your work has not only instrumental value (a means to an end) but intrinsic value—your work in itself has value. Most jobs have tasks we don’t enjoy but simply need to get done. Dealing with a difficult and demanding customer, addressing conflict with a fellow worker, going into a dirty crawl space to fix a pipe, or cleaning a bathroom may not be enjoyable, but when we embrace this work as an act of God-pleasing worship, the attitude we have and the excellence of our work changes. This, too, is holy work done on holy ground.
Chapter 6, Thank God It’s Monday pp. 99-102
