Learning God’s Work In My Work
I was inspired to participate in the Faith & Work Journey (F&WJ) because I wanted to learn what the purpose of work is, and how one should prioritize work in our lives as Christians. After starting my career, and working in finance for six years, I experienced the way work was often the highest priority in my life, sometimes requiring all of the time and energy that I had.
The COVID-19 pandemic turned everything upside down, for pretty much everyone in the world — but for me this season gave me fresh insight into the unhealthy ways that I viewed work, often allowing it to become an idol in my life. By fall 2020, I was seriously questioning if I was in the right career. I felt that my soul was being sucked dry.
This is when it was revealed that I needed to make a change in order to fully experience the fullness of joy and adventure life brings. I saw the F&WJ as a great opportunity to fellowship with other Christians during this time when I was considering a career change to receive wise counsel from other working professionals, discipleship, prayer, and learn from the word of God what work is intended for. My hope was to have my work life revolve around my Christian life, not the opposite.
One of the greatest takeaways I had from the F&WJ is realizing that so many people have the same questions as me! Professionals around the world are wondering if they are in the right job, doing God’s good work and are moving in the right direction, which means work must be important to us. It is! We were made in God’s creation, and we learn from Genesis that God worked six days and rested on the seventh. Through our work we are able to partake with
God in bringing His kingdom here to San Francisco.
The other takeaway I had was about the value and growth we get from working just due to showing up every day and chipping away at something. Jesus never promises that life will be easy, or that there is a short cut to success, but sometimes it is just the daily grind of showing up, trusting God with our 8-hour workday, going to sleep and doing it all over again. I think that sometimes the monotony of daily life is supposed to point us to Jesus knowing that this is
not all there is, and yet we can rejoice in each day knowing God is using every minute to shape us into who we are becoming.
So you may be wondering what actually happened with the career change. After much counsel with church elders, community and new friends at F&WJ, I decided to make a career pivot and quit my job to do a coding bootcamp. I am now a software engineer and am 9- months into my first job!
While that may sound very exciting or inspiring, you need to know that work is still really difficult (maybe even more difficult in some ways). I have to constantly work at trusting God daily with my work and pray that He will use it to bring renewal to San Francisco and that He will continue to sanctify me through it.
Thank you F&WJ for walking with me during this season in my life!
by Rachel (Cleak) Wright; F&WJ Alum