Do You Bring Meaning To Your Work?

As an undergrad student majoring in International Business, I loved both business and the Bible. I was eager to serve God and go into business. But I didn’t know you could do both.

My spiritual mentors saw in me the gift of teaching and encouraged me to go into “ministry.” They also said my interest in global activities (international business) should be channeled into cross-cultural missions.

Knowing no other alternative, I followed their advice - albeit temporarily.

Ever since, I’ve been on a mission to integrate God with the world of work. But I notice that getting this type of advice from spiritual mentors – to channel your gifts into ministry - is not at all unusual. When it comes to meaning and purpose in life, people of faith, regardless of their faith, tend to look for it in cathedrals, churches, temples, mosques or wherever their community of faith gathers. What they listen to and learn there becomes their spiritual world.

There is one glaring problem with this approach, however. Namely, the amount of time people spend in their place of faith compared to where they spend the rest of their lives.

Even a devoted person of faith attends religious or spiritual events a mere 70-80 hours a year. In America the average workweek is creeping close to 50 hours or a total of 2400 hours a year. That means even a committed person of faith spends 30-40 times more hours at work than in their faith community.

If we are going to have genuine meaning in our lives it needs to flow into all spheres, and time spent at the workplace is the biggest chunk of time for the vast majority of us.

Many people have talked about meaning and work, but it is with a sort of passivity, as if they hope to stumble across it on their way to the water cooler. But if we are to have meaning in our lives, we have to be proactive. This means bringing meaning to work rather than waiting to find it.

For most people work is something of a necessity which is done to get more money to buy more stuff. But for work to have meaning, it can’t just be a means to an end. It has to be something that has genuine value in and of itself.

For me it is quite interesting that the Hebrew and Christian Bible start with, of all things, God working (Genesis 2:2-3). God creates humans in his image to imitate and represent Him. God then immediately commissions the humans to work.

When you ask most people what is spiritual, they will tend to think of something like singing or praying or meditating or some other worthy activity. But the very first passage in the Bible demonstrates that it is our work that is of fundamental importance.

For us to live our faith with consistency and integrity it has to be spread throughout our lives - and that undoubtedly includes our work lives. If this is true, then we don’t have to try and find meaning at work, but instead can realize that work itself is meaningful.

Have you found meaning at work?

What helps you find meaning or what prevents you from it?

Post by Mark L. Russell, author of Our Souls At Work: How Great Leaders Live Their Faith in the Global Marketplace

Photo by H. Michael Karshis, used with permission.