EP 81

Welcome to the Smiling at the Future podcast. My name is Christi Rose and this is my pursuit to glean practical wisdom on femininity, home making, finances, relationships and singleness from the God fearing men and women in my life. Hope you enjoy this journey with me as we learn to smile at the future.

Hi everyone, I love that you are here again listening in and wanting to join me as we together seek wisdom from these wise godly people. As always, you are more than welcome to send me your suggestions for topics you would like to hear covered to Smiling at the future podcast@gmail.com. We have Reagan Rose joining us again today to give us a biblical perspective on a topic that applies to the majority of us and that is our vocational work. I personally found this conversation to be very helpful in my own attitude about my job, and my hope is that it lifts you up as you strive to give glory to God in all the aspects of your life. So here is my conversation with Reagan Rose.

Hi, Reagan. Welcome back to the podcast. Would you start us off by giving some background on who you are in the ministry that God has you in right now all?

Right. Well, it’s great to be back with you, Christi. I was happy when you asked me to come back on. I love talking about these things and love having these discussions with you. Yeah. My my name is Reagan Rose. I run a ministry called Redeeming Productivity. And the whole goal of that is to help Christians with time management, personal development, basically growing specifically in vocation and balancing their life, how how they manage and steward what God’s given them. But doing that from a rigorously biblical perspective, treating our lives as a stewardship in every area, so we have resources on, you know, making schedules, setting and keeping goals, a lot of these practical things that. Sometimes we don’t get that deep into the details of on a Sunday morning, which is is appropriate, but that’s sort of the area that the Lord’s called me to and a lot of resources on redeemingproductivity.com. I’ve written several books on topics related to this and just trying to serve the church in this, what I think is a vital area.

Yeah, no. I’ve loved your resources, Reagan. They’ve been a huge blessing in my own life. Not only your podcast, which is retired now, but the episodes are still up if people want to check that out. And then of course your website, lots of articles, And the book that you came on last time on back on episode 68 to discuss redeeming productivity really, really loved the book and was so helpful as we as Christians understand our motives behind wanting to be productive. Not for our own pride and our own sake and our own life, but obviously the goal to give glory to God and to steward well what he’s given us. So we’re kind of in today’s discussion, we’re narrowing that a little bit more into the category of vocational work. And many of the listeners were in that season of working a full time job, 9:00 to 5:00. And sometimes we can feel like it’s kind of more of the secular side of our life. It’s not somehow doesn’t really fit in well with our Christianity. And the real ministry that we do is outside of our daytime job. But I don’t think that’s biblical and I’m sure we’ll dive into some of that through this discussion. But just to kick us off here, how should Christians view their work?

Yeah. So I think one of the the biggest things we struggle with as believers is it’s very easy when it comes to our work, to think of it how the world does, which is this is just a necessary evil. It’s a means to the to an ends. This is how I make money and I probably hate my job, and that’s OK Everyone hates their job. You know that. That’s sort of the attitude we approach it with. But this is not true. You might not love every aspect of your job. Work is hard, but when you think about it biblically, you have to remember that we were created for work. So even if you go way back to Genesis, right at the beginning one you have this God who is a working God, even as he creates everything He’s working and it’s even tells us, you know, later in in Exodus, he points back to that as the example for how we’re to work. You know the the command for the Sabbath to the nation of Israel was six days shall you labor in the 7th is is to be holy unto the Lord. And it says explicitly because that’s what the Lord did. And so our work, it was explicitly made to be an aspect of how we image 4th God were created in his image. Our work is 1 big way that we do that and so we have to remember all of that came before the fall. So if you think about work as his necessary evil, you’ve got things mixed up. Work is not a consequence of the curse. Work isn’t something that God put on us because because we sinned it was made harder. Certainly you know the when God is telling them in Genesis 3 by the sweat of your brow. Right. There’s gonna be thorns and thistles like you’re going to work. It’s gonna be harder now. And so I think we feel that tension. Work is still what we’re called to. And so we we do can and should, I think, find very a meaning and satisfaction in our work. But there’s also, on the other side, all that frustration. I think one thing we could be tempted to do is focus in on the frustration and the hard part. And then what does that lead to? Complaining. Bitterness. And actually, and I think the real tragedy is relegating this important aspect of what we’ve been called to do. To this area of, oh, I got to do that. But then on Sunday and these other parts of my life, that’s that’s real life. No, it’s all real life and it’s all part of what God has called you to. So I think that’s that’s really, really important. And if I could drill a level deeper with it, one of the things is we can serve God and worship him through our work. And I’m not trying to be trite that. I think that is very biblical if all of our lives are supposed to be worshipped, but we take that as a premise, work just. Given how much time we have to give to it each week, if you’re working full time, that’s a lot of your hours every single day, every single week. That is just time wise, going to be your primary vehicle for worship for most of us. And so if you’re neglecting that, not even thinking about how how do I worship God through my work, that’s a huge chunk of your life. You’re just not even submitting to God. And so the way I like to say it is work doing good work can be a means for us doing good works, right? And and so we know, of course, that the scripture teaches that we’re not saved by good works. But we are told in Titus Titus 214 that we’re we’re saved unto good works. It says that Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works. It’s saying even part of the plan of redemption was it’s it’s not just to save us from our sins and give us heaven, but there is a renewal where new creations in Christ Jesus, right. And the the purpose of that even here in this life is to be zealous for good works. And so historically the church is sort of divided up. We’ve talked about works of piety and works of mercy, the works. So the categories for good works, right works of piety is things we do that are vertical towards God. Like we think about this on a Sunday, typically, right? And I’m singing praises to him or maybe I’m studying the scripture. I’m praying. These are good works. This is a biblical character. Good works. But these are God word works of piety. How can you do that in your work? Well, you can do your work as unto the Lord, right? Colossians 323. Your heart attitude behind it. This, this thing I’m doing, this spreadsheet I’m doing today, Lord, I’m going to do this unto you. I’m going to do it well. I’m going to do it with excellence. I’m going to do it with an attitude that is committing this to you. Not just so my boss sees it. Not just so someone says, oh, you did a good job or not. Just so I, you know, I don’t get looked over for the promotion. I’m doing it because I’m made in the image of a God who does good work. And so I’m going to do this unto you. And then the other side of it, the works of mercy, Right. That’s things that are horizontal. Right. So. How you love others, right? This is the same division, Jesus said when when he was asked what the greatest command was. Right the greatest commanded Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. And the 2nd is like it. Love your neighbors yourself. That’s works of piety is the vertical. The second one is works of mercy. So works of mercy. How do you do that at work? How do you do that? You serve people well. You serve your clients, your customers, your Co workers. You love them, you sacrifice for them your boss, right. You do what they say with a happy heart and and and this extends to every aspect and we really miss a huge opportunity when we don’t think of our work this way. I really do believe it. It’s not a necessary evil. Work is a wonderful gift. Yes, it’s been made harder by the curse, but it is still the biggest time wise place where you’re going to get to serve God. And serve others and do good work as good works unto him.

So powerful. Reagan. I remember when I first learned that concept that my vocational job could actually be good works that God has designed and planned for me to do. That helped so much to view my job, like you said, not just as a necessary evil, but actually this is something God. How God wants me to glorify him right now is through this, this particular career, this job, and he’s equipped us for the different jobs He wants us to do. I mean, that’s biblical as well. How he made us. The talents He’s given us are ways that he wants us to serve him in this life and in this world and yes, such a great way to be a light in the world. Many of us as believers, that is the main area that we interact with unbelievers. So we can be salt and light and be a witness. And you know, there’s tact, of course, as we all know, and you don’t share the gospel every day on the job if if that’s not appropriate. But your work ethic will speak volumes and Christians should be the ones establishing the standard for a excellent work ethic. And that all gives glory to God. But sometimes there’s some ditches here. Even with most things in life, people can get out of balance in their work and so how would someone evaluate if they have a proper work life balance?

Yeah, it’s an interesting phrase. It comes up a lot. But when you kind of press even asking yourself, like, what do I mean by work life balance, it’s a little bit more complicated than it sounds, right? I think all of us were maybe looking for some kind of perfect equilibrium. Like what is the precise right amount of sleep, exercise, time with friends or family? How much time should I spend at work? Well, how much should I give to how much time should I spend at church? Like what is balance? And we think maybe, you know, if I found the perfect formula that’s going to end up becoming the norm for every week I can maybe schedule around this thing or something and say here now I know I’m exactly have the right balance. And then the second you feel like that’s the case, some big thing happens, right? And some and they’re like, Oh no, the balance is gone again. Or you take a vacation, everything’s thrown off. I think when we start to get specific about what we mean by balance. It’s really hard to define. And even if even if you were just to take it OK work versus other life stuff, you’re not going to find in scripture, you know you can’t flip to the back and and find you know, versus it’s going to say 5050 or 7030, right. So it’s very much a wisdom issue and there’s a a lot that goes into it. But I think we are looking for balance, whatever we mean by that, because we do feel the current balance is off. And I think there’s, there’s some good data in there for us, right. So if someone’s like I don’t have a good work life balance there, there is something going on. We where you know you’re being negligent in some area, you have too much going on, you’re too busy, too, too stressed. Important things are not getting the attention you know they deserve. So how do we address this? I think one really big, helpful way to think about this is to think in terms of seasons. Of life. You know the the Bible talks about this. We’re we’re not trying to achieve perfect balance for every day from here till the end of life. Like it’s not there’s not some ideal that we can hit. OK. Instead I think what we’re looking for is an appropriate allocation for the present season. So appropriate allocation of energy, of time, of focus, knowing that you are being faithful to steward. All all of the important things the Lord has given you in this season of life according to their their priority in this season, right? So I know that doesn’t really simplify it, but it does. It does help you think a little bit different. You’re not trying to lock in something you’re going to stick with forever. And this is biblical, right? Ecclesiastes 3. And it talks about there’s a, there’s a. A season for everything, right? A time for every matter under heaven. And I think we think about life seasonally. It helps with some of these things. And so a couple of just really practical tips. If you have to someone who’s trying to think through this, the 1st is you want to pursue balance as an average, not a constant, OK. But what I mean by that is, you know, I’ve already said like you’re not going to get some perfect schedule. It’s perfectly balanced. It’s going to work here this year, 2023, the fourth quarter and that’s going to work probably even. The next year I think life changes too much. So what I think about I I sort of divide up and it’s some of the stuff I teach. I divide life into six big categories or I call them domains of stewardship, right? You’ve got your vocations, that’s your work. You’ve got relationships, you’ve got your recreationally rest, you’ve got all these different areas and I sometimes illustrate them as a pie graph. I’m not trying to make those all evenly perfect 1/6 for every season of life. Some seasons I’m going to be doing way more at work. Some seasons, in fact, I was just talking to somebody this week who had a family member who was in the final stages of life and that was I think 2 years for them. They’re caring for this person and they were just that. They just passed away a few months ago and they were saying the my everything’s out of whack now because I. Index my entire life around caring for this person, and now I’ve got to get back to work. I do this. I have to rebalance. And what I told them is that’s good that you did that. You did the right thing unbalancing your life, as we might say, to focus on the most important thing now. You’re trying to rebalance, make a a new allocation of your pie graph, of how you give your time and energy to things according to what’s appropriate in this season. That season has passed. Now it’s time for this person to refocus back on vocation. So my point is, it’s going to be an average. So if you look back over your lifetime, you just took snapshots. You’d say I’m always unbalanced. But if you are constantly making adjustments according to what the season of lifeguard has you in, you’ll see, oh wow, yeah, in that season. I was not giving myself fully to all of my relationships because I had this big thing I was dealing with, but in this season I was correcting for that, right? So it’s an average, not a constant. The second thing is you have to embrace plans, neglect, not self delusion. I think when it comes to balance, sometimes we’re self delusional. We think especially when a big thing like that happens, maybe a family member gets sick or a a big life event. And for myself, in February we had our third. Baby and I had learned from having the other two that I needed to plan for that I had to wind some things down because I wasn’t going to have time to do everything. That’s the self delusion side that you’re going to have some new big thing in life and you’re still going to be able to balance, you’re not like. And for me that was that was when I wound down my my podcast because I thought that’s I have too many things going on. So plan neglect. So instead of being self delusional. Plan, neglect, Say these are the things I’m not going to do right now because things are out of balance. And this I really do feel like, Christi, to your question, this is the highest leverage answer I could give is you look at what season of life am I in what what what are the things God’s called me to be faithful to? And it’s a priorities game, right, you’re saying? Okay. If this is most important, I can’t do everything. Admit your finitude. I’m a creature. God is the omnipotent one. He is the infinite one. He can do everything I can’t. What I can do is be faithful to the most important things God’s given to me, and then be kind and gracious and communicative about the things that I can’t give myself. To completely and that sometimes means winding down commitments that you have to other people you know asking them to release you from those commitments. Putting other things aside even things that are good, they’re not bad things. They’re good things. You just don’t have time because this is a a new season. And the third the last one I’ll just say real quick of how to how to have more balance. You pursue work life balance is you can create sort of maintenance habits for each domains of life. You don’t have to quit everything you’re doing. So you know, if you picture that pie graph again. There are certain things in different seasons that might not get the attention that you want to give them. Don’t just drop them completely. I’ll give the example of relationship stuff, right You go back to the woman I was describing who was helping a dying family member. Other relationships kind of got put to the side. But in that season, I would say still try if you can have a plan for reaching out once in a while. It’s not the same frequency as you were doing before. But you don’t just completely forget about that area or another one Is exercise off. When life gets busy, we drop exercise, and exercise is important. Our bodies are also belong to the Lord. You can have a plan to maintain those things without them, even though you’re not giving them the full attention you’d like to give them. Because again, you’re just admitting this is the season I’m in and so I’m going to be faithful to what’s most important in this season.

Yeah, so, so helpful. And for some people, it could be also just realizing they need more discipline in the areas of social media or Netflix or whatever they’re giving time to and they feel like they’re just barely able to keep their head above water in their life commitments. And maybe it just means cutting out time, waster things, having self-control and discipline in those areas. And like you said, there’s a place for recreation. We don’t just, you know, work non-stop. Like the Lord gave us the pattern for rest as well, but there are also things that aren’t very rejuvenating or refreshing, and we don’t come away feeling rested. So understanding those things and cutting those from your life I think will be really helpful.

Yeah, that’s well said. There’s easy things you can cut out and we just don’t do them because we’ve gotten to these patterns where we don’t even think about that. Hey, is it really normal for me to? You know, watch TV for four hours in the evening. You know, you say, well, it’s not, it’s, you know, you can watch TV, that’s OK. But maybe if you’re feeling like you’re out of balance, you’re not being faced with areas that’s a really easy thing to to maybe do in an hour instead or something, you know, That’s a great point.

So even in the workplace though, we can feel stress, and especially with women, there’s lots of studies where it’s at an all time high where jobs cause an incredible amount of stress on someone. So when should someone just say OK, grit my teeth, Barrett endure? Or is there a time and place they should consider switching jobs or careers? And how would you encourage someone to think through that?

The big question I in a lot of ways, Christi, I think that’s one of the big questions for Christians in the time we live in. And let me let me rephrase or kind of boil it down to what I see it as. It’s a question of how do you have contentment in a time where we have nearly infinite opportunity. So you think about people in the past, you think about even biblical instructions. You know, be content as the Lord called you. You know, you’re a soldier, then remain a soldier, like. And even in the times of Luther in the 1500s. And even as he’s talking about vocation, this doctrine of vocation, he said, you know, if the Lord’s called you be a Baker, just be a Baker. That the question isn’t. It doesn’t even enter the conversation that I have some career mobility. Well, why don’t you go and and apply to be something else. It was so few options for most people. So the question was how do I be content where I am and and stop imagining what? Well, what if, what if, what if? But what do you do in our era where you actually can find a new job or switch careers? How do you be content and you know, consider hey, there are other options that might be better? I I really do feel like it’s a big complicated question. One of the things to consider, you know what Paul says in in First Corinthians 721, He’s talking about the the people who were saved and they were slaves at the time they were slaved slaves. And he said, were you a bond servant when you were when called? Well, do not be concerned about it. And then he says the ESP puts us in parentheses, but if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. I think that’s interesting. That’s interesting. He’s like, don’t worry about it. But then he says, but if you can get freedom, do it now, hopefully, you know with us our jobs. We’re not slaves to our jobs, obviously. But I do think that there’s some instruction there we can we can avail ourselves the opportunity to switch careers, right? Or change jobs. The question is, as you said, when is this OK or when should I actually consider this? And specifically, you were asking about stress, which is massive. You’re you’re right, especially among women. Like if you look at the research on this, it’s going up, up, up, up, up. I think there are a couple of ideas here to consider. The 1st is that you have to remember stress is a response and there obviously there are stressors in our environment. There can be unreasonable demands at work. There can be relational conflict. There can be a lot of things that cause us to want to respond with stress. But in in a lot of ways, we do have to take responsibility for our our responding in a stressful way, right, Our our. I don’t want to say choosing because I know it is complicated, but you have more control over your response to things than you do and so you don’t want to just write this off of. I’m in a stressful job, therefore I’m stressed all the time. I’m. I’m worried because and I have an excuse to be worried about things because things are worrisome. But that’s not necessarily true. Some of that is within your control, and a lot of it deals with perception. How do you think about the environment you’re in? So this is, this is sort of how I would if I was going to give someone a little bit of plan to think they’re here’s Howard Tacklet first and this should be obvious but sometimes we skip it is begin with prayer. If you’re in a job right now and you’re thinking so stressed, I don’t even know if this is the right job for me. I don’t even know if this is the right career. I might be on the totally wrong track. Begin with prayer, you know. Ask for help with coping with it. Ask for the peace of the Lord surpasses all understanding. Ask him to to cast your cares on him as he tells us to do and do that. And then pray for wisdom. And we read in in James one that you know, if anyone asks for wisdom, they receive it. That’s a wonderful, promising scripture. We’re told if we pray for wisdom, we’ll get a yes answer to that. I want to pray prayers that have a guaranteed yes. Like I want to pray for wisdom. He wants to direct you. He wants you. If your heart’s desire is to use your career as a means of glorifying him, God is your ally in that pursuit. That’s his highest pursuit too. He wants to glorify himself and he wants to do that in your life. So ask for wisdom. How do I do that? Is this the right place? So begin there. Second, I would say ask yourself this. Is this current job or career the best vehicle for me to glorify God with my unique giftings in this season? OK, I’ll say that again. Is this current job or career the best vehicle for me to glorify God with my unique giftings in this season? You might want to ask that to some of your friends, maybe a pastor or if you have a a spiritual mentor, ask them what they think. If no, you know if the answer to that is no. I I think I’m this might not be the best place for my giftings. Or if others are counseling that way too. It might be wise to begin looking for other opportunities, and that’s OK. That doesn’t mean you have to be discontent with where you are. You can do that while maintaining commitment in the present one. I’ll talk more about that one second, but the third in the meantime, or if you are convinced that you are in the right job or career art directory. So either way, however you answer that last question, at least for now, you should try and set some boundaries. So here’s just the tactical stuff. How do I deal with a a stressful job or career? I think a big one is time. If you have, you know, in our day of always being connected online, sometimes we we’re taking the work home with us and no one’s asking us to. Like you’re checking your e-mail and no one’s expecting that of you. You just feel like it’s an expectation, you know? And I think it’s believers. This is hard because we’re eager to please. We want to do a good job obviously, but sometimes we can let that and this goes back to the balance question. We let it take over our whole life And so setting some some boundaries on when am I going to be working, when am I going to stop. Sometimes you even have to you know, maybe put some lockers in your device or not have your e-mail on your phone, right. And and that’s. So that’s a good place to start. Another one is prioritizing. I think this is bigger than most people realize. What is the most important thing that I need to be doing at work right now? Sometimes that’s given to you, sometimes you don’t know, but at some jobs it’s just, you know, you basically show up and stuff’s thrown at you and that’s that’s the priority is whatever was just thrown at you. But having some sense of what’s most important, even in terms of responsibilities, if it’s not projects, doing what’s most important in thinking that way and being OK with OK every, Everything’s not going to get the same level of attention. Again, there’s there’s a mental shift that has to stay there. I really do believe that overwhelm is very often a symptom of a lack of clarity. You feel overwhelmed because you don’t know what the most important thing is, so you feel like I’m falling behind on everything. But when you have a really sharp clarity and this is the most important thing, then you have a little bit, you feel a little bit more comfortable with, OK, that all that stuff, it can fall behind a little bit, or I don’t have to do all that. I don’t have to feel like all of that. Those balls need to be juggled. At the same time, this is the ball that needs to be juggled. Last thing I would say on on that is communicate. You know, this is hard. I know it’s hard. This is this has to do with setting boundaries. But if you’re in a job where you’re stressed out and maybe it’s a boss thing or just the responsibilities given you, if it’s too much you got to communicate that. I think very often we suffer in silence because we we just don’t say, hey, I’ve listed out, here’s all the stuff you’ve asked me to do. I actually can’t do all of this just, you know because of the limits of the time space continuum. So coming and saying here’s everything I have going on, what should be the priority? So it even goes back to the last one. I asked them what is the priority. I was just talking to someone yesterday who was saying a friend of his kept a big board in his office and it had all the priority things that the boss had asked him to do and they were listed in the order. This guy thought there was the most priority. And so when the boss would come in and say, hey, we got this new thing, this new thing coming up, can you start working on this? This is the main thing. The guy would go over and take him over the board and graciously kindly and say, hey, here’s all the stuff that the priorities is ICM, which one of these should we drop or should we move to the end of the line so that we can do this thing every often? The boss would say, Oh yeah, no, that stuff is the biggest priorities. Can you stick with what you’re doing? We’ll we’ll figure out something else for this. So I think it’s just an aspect of communicating. If if you’re stressed out, you got to communicate. I mean, if I could, and I’ve talked for a long time here, but if I could just throw in something that’s sort of a a hobby horse of mine. You brought it up at the transition between these two questions. But the phone, social media, all of that stuff. I really believe that a lot of our stress in the time we’re living in comes from the wilfully submitting ourselves to be inundated with trivial information through our phones, social media, all of that stuff. I’m not saying you have to quit it or whatever, but I did. Couple years ago, I did a month without, I guess it was a couple months without a smartphone. And I can. Nothing else changed in my life, Christi. But you know what? Not looking at that stuff, not even looking at the news, it was like, I don’t have that much going on. It was so weird. I still had the same number of responsibilities, but I didn’t feel like I was overwhelmed. And then I actually, I’m in the middle of it right now. I haven’t been on social media for a little over a month now. Again, just stopping and kind of seeing same thing is happening for me. I still have a lot of stuff I have to do, but I don’t feel overwhelmed by it. And I think that’s a big psychological thing. A lot of us aren’t recognizing our constant stream of information. We’re stressing ourselves out and we’re blaming our jobs. But a lot of times you find out, you get off that, you’re going to find out, wait, my job might not actually be as stressful as I think it is. So that’s just something to consider.

Yeah, no, I, and honestly, I’ve been thinking about that as well. Just the clutter in our mind that all of that stimulation is causing and how we can’t think straight. Our attention spans are shorter because we’re just always getting those notifications on our phone and on our if it’s sitting on our desk. One practice I’ve been trying to do is putting my phone in my purse when I’m at work or just out of sight, not on my desk, and just having it out of my peripheral vision. Has helped me to focus more on my work and not be so distracted. And this obviously ripples into all the areas of life, like when we’re always distracted, always inundated. We can’t meditate on the Lord and commune with Him and worship Him in the way that we should because we’re just every 30 seconds you know, where our mind is being pulled to that device. I was talking to a friend yesterday who is trying to. Get away from smartphones altogether and that’s a pretty drastic move. But she just said, you know, I don’t see this being a good thing in my life anymore. Like the only things I want on my phone are navigation. So I can get from point A to point B, you know, maps and maybe music, but I don’t need all the other distractions on my phone. I don’t know if you have any advice on just how do you limit these other than just like self-control logging off these apps? What would you say to that?

Yeah, I’m glad you asked that. This is something I think about all the time because I it’s actually a trend right now and I think we’ll see it increase of people just rejecting the smartphone. I think I I I think we’ve made a mistake to society in letting these things take over our lives. But I I do have some ideas. So I have tried different dumb, dumb phones myself. As I mentioned it’s hard because there are a lot of things that rely on them. One thing I so I have an iPhone and I’ve taken a couple of measures that anyone can do that are very helpful. So one, the screen time thing. You know, you can set screen time limits. That’s almost useless because you can just click ignore for the day and it just becomes like part. If anyone’s ever done that, it just becomes part of the ritual of, oh, I’m going to like, for me it was Twitter was the big one. I was like, oh, I’m only going to do this 30 minutes a day and then 30 minutes would pass and it’d say, all right, ignore for the day and it would tell me not to go on it. The one thing I use, and I’ve been using this during my current season, I’m not having social media, is I use an app called Freedom. If you go to freedom dot TO it’s really cheap. They even have like they run different sales but they have a lifetime subscription. It’s basically AVPN or a virtual private network and it works the same way like it basically works on the at the network level of your phone blocking access to Facebook servers or Instagram servers or whatever website you want and you can customize it. So this is really cool. You can make different. You can do it as a session where you you have your block list and you hit start. I want to focus for 90 minutes or what I do is I have scheduled sessions so I have one called Perma block and it’s all the stuff I don’t ever want to access on my phone. And by the way, this works across any device. It’s not just iPhone. It works on Android devices, PC, Mac, tablets, anything. And I have one that just has all the stuff I just never want to go on. And right now all the social media is on there. I have one for my morning routine time when I’m, you know, in the word and stuff. I can’t go on. There’s websites I’d like to be able to access later, like YouTube, things like that. I have those blocked during certain times of the day. That’s like if you don’t, if you just do one thing, check that out. It’s worth the investment of what? I don’t know what it costs, but it is worth it. That’s been the the thing that’s actually worked for me and it’s very hard to get around it even if you want to. So I would tell people do that, that’s that’s a really smart way without messing with a dumb phone necessarily and still keeping like you have navigation, you have the great camera. There’s a lot of good things about having a a smartphone, but if you can kill the bad stuff or keep it from yourself most of the time, it helps a lot.

OK, well I will link that in the show notes and I will check that out myself because yeah, just seeing that not being a good thing in my life and needing needing the good tools to help me. We know how to honor the Lord with this tool. So a lot of us, the listeners are single women. But we desire, or many of us desire to be a full time stay at home, wife and mom. And so a vocational job can just feel like it’s getting in the way of that or it’s Plan B. We don’t feel very fulfilled working in a cubicle on a computer. It’s yeah, our our heart is in the home, and that’s what God, I think, created women to be as homemakers. He says that in his word. So how would you encourage someone who just maybe is feeling that tension between what their heart is longing to do, what the Lord is giving them in that season? Do you have any, anything you can offer for encouragement?

Yeah. And I I can. I can imagine. I mean you it it’d be hard to be fully invested right. If you if you’re feeling like this is my Plan B like this is not what I want to be doing to fully give yourself to it. I think it comes back to you said it seasons again you know we we don’t know what the Lord has for us in the future. He hasn’t told us exactly. You know he hasn’t mapped out. Here’s how your life’s going to go right. But what we do know is where we are in the current season. We do know that. And if we believe in the sovereignty of God and his his Providence and and the fact that he can use us in any area to to do good for his glory and for others, then you know, if you’re at a job right now, that’s a place where you need to give yourself to fully right now. That doesn’t mean committing yourself to the career track of this is going to be forever, but it does mean not doing it with a half heart, you know. And again, we mentioned contentment earlier. I think this is, I imagine would be a good a big part of it. A contentment is, you know, the intention to fully dedicate yourself to what the Lord has for you in this season without being overly attached to it or your dreams for the future, right. It it, it’s in intention versus attachment. I think what happens is we can become overly attached to the career where we we idolize it and then we forget about Oh no this is like I’m actually this is not what my my hope is for the future but you also I think the bigger threat is we become overly attached to and even idolize our hopes and dreams for ourselves for the future. So in the the case you said with with being a wife or being a mother and to such a degree that you refuse to be content where the Lord has you right now. So my point is that those things you’re excitement for your your desire for something, that’s the better word. Desire for a future state, something the Lord would have for you, is not this. This is not in contention with contentment. Those two things can live side by side, right? You can desire that the Lord gives you this thing without idolizing it and at the same time saying, I’m going to use this job full. I’m gonna pour myself in this, I’m gonna do this really, really well. Because I know the one thing I do know is what this is, what the Lord has for me in this season. So I always show up fully for your vocation. Don’t do it halfway and think, well, I don’t need to really give myself to this because it’s, you know, I I don’t really care about where this career is taking me. You know, I’m not trying to do this because I’m trying to get to the next level. Now that’s that’s that’s the wrong way of thinking about it. You show up fully for it because this is how you’re glorifying God today. You. You show up fully for it. You give yourself to the job to do it well because you’re doing it as unto the Lord, right? So. So keep that there and give yourself to that reason. You know Colossians 323 as we work hard as unto the Lord and not for men. I think those are the the big ways to think about. It’s it’s a lot of a heart struggle. I can, I can understand that. But faithfulness means like living appropriately to the season. The Lord’s given you and what you know right now is he’s giving you this job to do it really well for him and you can continue to desire it. You can do to trust him for the future, but don’t neglect the thing that you know he’s giving you, at least for now.

Yeah, I love how you talked about God’s sovereignty and Providence. And he knows how best that he can get glory with our lives. And so again, like you said, trusting him that he knows what’s good not only for his glory but for our good. And he perfectly weaves those two together. He’s not just OK You’re a slave to your this job because it gives me glory. But he knows that it’s best for us as well. You mentioned some verses about, you know, doing your work heartily as unto the Lord. Can you give us just some rubber meets the road practical tips on work ethic, things we should keep in mind that will help us to be productive in our workplace and a light to our Co workers?

Yeah, absolutely. Let me try. So we’ve touched on some of these so let me try to distill some of them down to like really practical stuff. The big thing, the the number one thing is all of this begins with your Your mindset of my work is worship. Repeat that. You know my work is worship. If you get that right, everything else flows from it. You will be diligent in your work because you’re recognizing this isn’t for me. It’s not a separate sphere of life for my spiritual life. It’s independent from it. It’s a vehicle God has given me for serving him and others and even. But this is what I’m talking about even a vehicle for serving the church because I think people often miss this. Your your job gives you money when we know that but the the portion of the a portion of that money goes to you give back to God in as you give to your local church. And so even the money aspect is is a good thing and seeing all of those is every aspect of your work is you can do for God’s glory. Even taking him the paycheck and giving part of it to him. It’s it’s really amazing. I mean, forget that all starts with mindset. And then so once you have that or as you’re developing that mindset and continually to remind yourself and be immersed in the word, you know, thinking his thoughts after him, there’s some really practical things you do to develop the good work ethic and like really, really practical. So one track your time so you say, well, you know, some people might be a thing where they fill out a timecard. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about know where your time is going throughout the day. So there’s there’s apps you can do for this, or you can keep a little sheet of paper in front of you and just.com where your time is going. And this is not for anyone else but yourself. It’s a way of seeing how am I spending my time, am I working diligently, where can I improve? And like you’re not, do again, you’re not doing this so that you get the raise of the promotion. You’re doing this because you’re working heartily as under the Lord and practically. I’m going to make sure that I’m doing that well with my job. I’ll just tell you an app I use is called Rise RIZE dot. I think the website is RIZE dot IO and it automatically you can kind of set categories if you’re working on a computer for your job, and it will, it will track like the different categories that you’ve put different apps or websites in and you can get a little report. I’ve been doing this for years and I get a report each day and each week and I know how much time I wasted, how much time was spent, focused, that kind of stuff. I really, I know it sounds a little pedantic or maybe nerdy, but I I want to and I think we can presume if if you’re a believer, you want to be diligent work, you got to know where your time is going, You want to know so you can improve. Another thing is having specific goals. I think this goes back to the clarity thing, right? You feel overwhelmed because of lack of clarity, but also you just want to know what are you aiming for right now, especially in this age, most of our jobs, I would assume are sort of what we would call knowledge work jobs. There’s not, you can’t turn around at the end of the day and say, look, I built a shed or you know, you don’t have something physical to show for your work. And so that’s part of the frustration I think we feel a lot of times in the meaninglessness of our work is you can turn around and you’re like nothing changed, maybe a number and a spreadsheet somewhere. But having specific goals you set for yourself, for this month, for this week, for even today, writing those down, that helps with the clarity thing and helps you to stay focused and make sure that you’re actually being diligent by working on what matters most. And then let me just say one more thing on the I guess this goes back to mindset, diligence or having a good work ethic will be rewarded. My most recent book is on, I call it Life Stewardship, which is kind of this concept of thinking about every aspect of your life as a stewardship. So it’s not just about money, it’s about everything. And we talk about vocation in there too. And we look at faithfulness and stewardship as we’re shown in Matthew 25 with the parable of the talents. One of the characteristics you see of a faithful steward in that parable is that they were diligent or we would say they have a strong work ethic. And with study diligence in the Scripture. It’s something God rewards, even in the Proverbs it says in Proverbs 10. For a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. And now with with Proverbs, these things are generally true. It’s not this isn’t a promise isn’t a help in wealth gospel or something. But it is true that people who are diligent, genuine, generally, that is actually rewarded even temporally. And so that’s presented to us in scripture not as a negative thing but as a positive motivation to diligence. But more importantly, diligence or good work ethic is rewarded eternally. Galatians 69 And let us not grow weary of doing good before in due season. We will reap if we do not give up. These both go towards motivation. I want to, I want to serve God well because I want to bring him glory. And I also know that I have this faithful God who graciously didn’t even didn’t just save me from my sins. That would be enough. But also has adopted me as his son or daughter and also has graciously said, and in fact, I’m going to work good works through you, through my Holy Spirit, and then that’s all grace. I’m going to do that through you and I’m going to reward you for that as well. Like it’s just that grace upon grace upon grace, right. And so if you’re working and you have your head down, you’re doing the work throughout the day and you’re like this, How do I do this? You remember God’s watching, even if no one else cares how hard I’m working. And he’s a God who’s faithful, He’s a God who rewards. And even if I never get a raise, no one ever compliments me. You can have a beat down at work and it’s just so frustrating. I’m not working for them. I’m working for God. And when you live for him, the good work ethic, the the, the diligent, it will follow and it will be rewarded.

Wow, that is the perfect note to end on Reagan. Thank you so much for. Just sharing all that you’ve studied and learned in this sphere and how you just poured your life into helping other believers understand how this glorifies God and how to do this well, and that it impacts a huge part of our lives and just a beautiful way that we give God glory. So thank you so much for your time and for accepting the invitation to come back on the podcast. And I know it’ll just spur other believers on to love and good deeds as they seek to glorify God in their workplace.

It was an honor to be here. I love talking about this stuff. I’ll throw one more thing out there if if people want on my website redeemyourproductivity.com. If you go there, you can enter your e-mail address and I’ll send you a morning routine planner. This free thing that will help you kind of plan out your day, pick the most important things to work on, carve out time for devotions, all that stuff. It’s a very practical guide to setting up your mornings so that you can lead God glorifying Day, so that that’s an easy thing to try to put some of these things into action if you’re looking for a next step.

Awesome. Yeah, I’ve I’ve benefited from that and I know the other listeners will as well. And that’s really if we start the day off well, it really impacts the rest of our hours that day and spurs us on to live each hour well. So thank you so much.