Editor’s Note: Read the previous articles in this series below!
“Workism” and God’s Design for Work
The Impact of the Fall on Work
The Motivation for Work
Protecting Yourself and Your Family at Work
In our ongoing series on work, our overarching theme is that the Bible teaches that work is a God-given blessing, but due to the corruption of sin, it must be approached with diligence, intentionality, and wisdom to protect your family. We’ve discussed several Biblical principles that can help us have a proper balance between work and family.
First, we evaluated the high cost of having an imbalance in this area and we also laid the framework that work was created by God for our good (Gen 1:26-31). Next, we considered the reasons why work can be so frustrating or get out of balance due to sin entering the world (Gen 3:17-19). Third, we explored the proper motivation for work: serving Jesus (Col 3:22-24).
In our last article, we began discussing how guarding your heart at work is the first step to properly protecting your family. Due to the weightiness of this issue, we’ve broken up the list of practical things to be on guard against into multiple parts to make it more digestible. Let’s jump back into our list of temptations we need to guard our hearts against at work to protect our families.
Protecting Yourself and Your Family at Work: “Guard Your Heart”
Practical Atheism/Self-Reliance
We can become so confident in ourselves and our abilities that we sometimes act like practical atheists. That would look like lack of prayerfulness over our work or thinking that we alone can influence the outcomes for our work. We should obviously be proactive in our work, but we should bathe our work in prayer to recognize that God is sovereign over all things.
Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.
Proverbs 16:3
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
Proverbs 3:5-7
Laziness
In the day-in day-out slog of work, it can be very easy to just go through the motions and slack off. “I know I should be working on that project, but I’m going to just watch YouTube instead.” “This task should only take 15 minutes, but I’m going to work on it for an hour, because I don’t want to work on that other harder thing that I’m putting off.” Proverbs condemns the sluggard, laziness, and procrastination many times. Here’s an example:
Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
Proverbs 6:6-11
The Proverbs also place the sluggard in the same category as a vandal because a lazy person, over time, harms his employer by doing shoddy work or by robbing time from the company by not working efficiently: “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys” (Prov 18:9).
Immorality/Adultery
I’ve seen many senior leaders in the tech companies I’ve worked for leave their spouses for a younger co-worker or direct reports. Even tech visionaries like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Sergey Brin leave behind a string of broken marriages.
Between long hours in the office, travel away from family, and the constant flow of alcohol at work events, the workplace is a battleground for temptation. Be alert to guard your marriage and your family from adultery as you don’t want your family to be another casualty on this battlefield.
For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints… So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
Proverbs 2:8, 16-22
Bitterness
Since the workplace is filled with fallen, imperfect people, you will absolutely encounter unfairness and injustice from your leaders and your coworkers. Whether that’s the result of bad decisions stemming from incompetence or maliciousness from people seeking to take advantage of you, something is going to happen that will upset you. It’s very easy to let unrighteous anger take root in your heart. Be on guard for bitterness forming in your heart and beginning to poison it.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Ephesians 4:31
Ungratefulness/Discontentment/Complaining
Due to sin in our hearts and the legitimate frustrations of work, it can be easy for us to only look at the negative sides of our jobs. That can lead to complaining and being ungrateful. We have the tendency to always think the grass is greener. “If I just get another job, I’ll be happy.” “Why isn’t my job as good as that other person’s job?” While it’s not wrong to pursue opportunities for a better job, we should be on the lookout for discontentment or lack of thankfulness in our hearts.
Do all things without grumbling or disputing.
Philippians 2:14
But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
1 Timothy 6:6-10
Dishonesty/Corruption
Given all the moving parts and people you have to interact with in the workplace, you will likely be presented with many temptations for dishonesty. When a project is not on track or is delivering poor results, you may be tempted to fudge the numbers when your boss asks for an update. When doing something the right way is tedious and time consuming, you may be tempted to cut corners. When you make a mistake, you may be tempted to shift blame to someone else who wasn’t really at fault. Always choose honesty even if it may have short-term negative consequences.
Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.
Prov 20:17
Losing an Eternal Perspective
The constant urgency of your job may subtly shift your focus from eternal spiritual things to temporary things. For me, it was often hard to see beyond the next day, week, or quarter, because my team had so many milestones we needed to accomplish. If you don’t look up, you’ll get way off track for eternal priorities, like family responsibilities. Don’t confuse urgency for importance. There’s a famous quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower:
What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.
Our work is often urgent, but don’t let it distract you from the truly important eternal priorities God has put in your life.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:1-3
Fear of Man
We live in a judgmental society. If you don’t have the right job, the right car, the right house, or the right spouse, some people will look down on you. Depending on our families or our culture, many of these unbiblical expectations may come from our parents. When we are overly concerned with what people think about us, we can fall into the trap of the fear of man.
My wife and I met at work at a large tech company, and she worked there for several years after we got married. When we had our first son, she had a desire to be a stay at home mom, so we made the personal choice for our family that she would stay home with the kids. People thought she was insane to leave her job to be a homemaker, because most people in tech look down on stay at home moms. It can be very easy to let fear of what other people will think of you dictate your actions, rather than being concerned about what God will think about your actions. We need to be on guard from the fear of man.
The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
Prov 29:25
So far, we’ve looked at having a right perspective on work (“work is good”), understanding why work can be difficult (“thorns and thistles” from the fall), our motivation for working (“as unto the Lord”), and how we should be guarding our hearts. In our final article in this series on balancing work and family, we’ll look at how we should be pursuing wisdom in seeking to implement these truths practically in our lives.
