The Dream Job Complex

Kylen Perry: All right, Porch. How are we doing? Are we doing okay? Great to see you. Welcome back to The Relationship Series. I'm so glad you would choose to be with us, not just those of you who are here in the room but especially those of you who are here online with us. Special shout-out to Porch.Live Dayton, Porch.Live Indianapolis, and Porch.Live Scottsdale. We're so grateful y'all would be a part of what's happening here at The Porch.

I have some very special friends with me here tonight, and we have a very special evening prepared for you. First, I want to introduce my friends here to my left. This is Caitlin Van Wagoner and this is John Cox. Everybody say hello. So, here's what we're doing tonight. We are continuing in The Relationship Series where we're talking about God's design for connecting to one another.

A couple of weeks ago, we basically walked through a theology of work, which is important, because if you consider the average adult life, roughly a third of your life is going to be committed to the office space. I don't know if you know that. I did the math, and it's going to be roughly 30 percent of your life. Your waking hours are going to be spent on the job.

So, knowing that's the truth, we thought we would bring in some very special authorities on the topic of work. Here's what would be helpful before we get things rolling. Caitlin and John, would you do a quick introduction of yourself, what your role is here at Watermark, and a brief bio on your work experience?

Caitlin Van Wagoner: Awesome. Hey, y'all. My name is Caitlin Van Wagoner. I get to serve as the senior director of communications here at Watermark. Before I took a hard left turn into ministry, I was in the corporate world. I was a branding strategist at an ad agency here in Dallas for several years before I came to work here at Watermark.

John Cox: I'm John Cox, and I'm the executive pastor here at Watermark. I have spent about half my life in ministry and about half in business. Stanford undergrad. Did ministry for a while. Went back and got an MBA from Harvard. Moved to Dallas.

Caitlin: Did you hear that?

Kylen: Yeah. He was like, "Should I share that?"

Caitlin: Hold on. I went to Texas A&M.

Kylen: See? Aggies get the "whoop" and Harvard gets the "oohs" and "ahs."

John: Much better. Yeah, we were in fear of the Tree. That's what Stanford is. So, after I got my MBA, I moved to Dallas. I had grown up as a navy kid, never lived in the middle of the US, but I moved to Dallas and went to work for a strategy consulting company called the Boston Consulting Group. I worked for them for about five years, then went to a hedge fund in town. I was the head of strategy for HBK Investments and did that for about five years before I came on staff. I've been on staff for the last 14 years minus a three-year break back in investments.

Kylen: That's awesome. Listen. I don't know what your work situation is, but we have you covered tonight. I hope you brought a big pad because you're going to want to take some notes. They were unpacking for me very briefly some of the things they were wanting to share this evening, and I was like, "Where's my journal? I need to take some of this down for myself." They truly have an experience that's going to be really beneficial to you.

Here's why we're doing this. We know that work is a big part of your life, but we also know the truth of God's Word is not just meant to be intellectualized; it's meant to be practically executed. You're supposed to take the knowledge in your mind, and you're supposed to live it into existence. So, we wanted to give you some really good handles to hold as you consider your work experience, as you consider what your professional endeavors are today, tomorrow, and into the future.

We polled The Porch public and asked you guys, "Hey, what are your questions?" So, we've taken those and synthesized them and have prepared some questions for John and Caitlin to walk us through. The first one I think is really appropriate, because so much of the topic around professionalism is connected to purpose.

A lot of people look to their job and want to find purpose or fulfillment within it. They want to find whatever it is they're passionate about, and they want to pursue that in their career. So, the first thing I want to ask you guys is…How can we be faithful in our jobs when it doesn't feel purposeful or we're not necessarily passionate about it? What would y'all say?

Caitlin: The first thing I would say is faithfulness isn't dependent on your circumstances, including what job you have or how passionate you are about that job. Obviously, there is a desire to be passionate. That's an ideal we want to ascribe to, but that's not always the case. In fact, there is a lot to be said about working at a job you might not necessarily be passionate about. You can learn a lot from being placed in a job you might not be as well suited for or maybe not passionate about. You can learn what you're not good at.

There is a lot to be learned, and really smart people know how to redeem every single experience in their life for essentially creating a greater work acumen, a greater work résumé. So, you don't necessarily have to be working in your… Especially right out of college. I think there's a myth that you'll find your dream job and "Until I find my dream job, I'm going to keep job hopping." There's a lot to be said for staying and being faithful where you have been placed to make an impact wherever you are.

Kylen: That is a news flash. I worked in college ministry for a long time, and then I jumped into young adult ministry shortly thereafter, and it's true. Some of you would nod your heads in agreement. Your hope coming out of your undergraduate degree or grad school was to find that thing you're burning up with unbridled passion for and leverage all of your life to it. That's just not the way it goes. Caitlin is speaking to something really important.

Caitlin: I also think if you're expecting your job to fulfill your purpose, you're expecting your job to fill a role it was never meant to and cannot fulfill. Only Christ can give you your purpose. So, if you are waiting for your job to feel filled with purpose, you're going to be waiting forever, because it just isn't going to happen. Your purpose should come from Christ. Don't put your job in a position to fill a role it's not ever going to fill.

John: Yeah. One other thing is when you think about jobs, you think about where you're going to work, and then you think about how you're going to work. Right? The Lord is much more concerned with how you work than where you work. A lot of people get wrapped around the axle, "Am I in the right place?" The question you should be asking is, "Hey, how am I doing my job? Am I doing it with faithfulness?"

In the book of Colossians it says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord not for men, because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward." It is the Lord Christ you're serving, and he's much more concerned with how we're working in the job we're in.

No job is perfect. At Watermark, I often say to myself, "When the days are really hard, I'm getting paid double." Those days I'm getting paid double, and the days that are easy I'm working for free. It generally balances out. That's just what I'm telling myself. "I'm getting paid double today."

Kylen: That's really good. Some of you needed to hear that. You're like, "I'm getting paid double for this one." The both of you just alluded to something that I think is really important. We've said this from the stage before, but I know this is probably true for you all. As I visit with young adults, often what I hear is, "Man, I'm not getting life from my job."

Here's the news flash: Your job was never meant to give you life. It was never intended to accomplish that end. It is a part of what God has called you to do here in this world as you walk with him, but the only one who gives life is Jesus Christ. In him is life and life to the full. That's where you'll find it. So I think it's really important that that's known from the outset.

One thing I was looking at… I thought this was fascinating. I don't know what y'all think about this. Recently, Gallup did a study that showed that only 30 percent of Americans are actively engaged on the job, which would mean that 70 percent are somewhere underneath active engagement, trending toward disengagement. This is the lowest level of engagement recorded in the last decade, which is fascinating when you consider that many of us are pursuing jobs according to our passions.

It means your passion is actually not leading to fulfillment. It means you're pursuing that which is going to "make me feel amazing in life." Like, "I'm going to choose a job I love, and I'll never work a day in my life." Yet what has happened is you're actively disengaged, though you have pursued your passions. It's because it's not meant to give you life. It's not meant to engage you.

I thought this was also very interesting. I'll just have y'all speak to it, because I'm curious. The main reasons people are disengaged on the job… The main three categories were remote employees, those who are in hybrid work situations, and young adults under 35. John, you and I were talking about this earlier, because there's a lot that's heaped up in this idea of "I'm supposed to pursue my passion." We were talking about how there's a difference between pursuing a job according to my passion and pursuing a job according to my gifts. Would you mind speaking to that?

John: I think anytime you're looking at a job you're looking at four factors. The first one is "Where do I want to work?" Like, geographically. "Where do I want to live?" The second one is a specific industry. Are you passionate about oil and gas or consumer retail or medicine? The third one is what you are doing every day. When you show up at 8:00, what are the tasks you're doing and do they fit with how God has wired you? Then the last one is the culture. "Do I like the people I work with?"

What I see consistently is the younger you are, the more likely you are to emphasize "Where do I want to live?" and "What industry would I want to work in?" The truth is what most impacts your satisfaction on your job is "What am I doing every day, and am I good at those things?" and then, correspondingly, "Am I working with people I genuinely enjoy being around?"

The thing about me is I never had a 40-year vision for what I was supposed to do. One of the greatest lies is "If I only find the right job, then everything is going to fall into place." What I would say is if you asked me, ever since I was 21 years old, where I was going to be in five years, I would now be wrong 39 consecutive years. Predicting where you're going to be or finding the perfect job is just an illusion.

What I've learned is when you're in a job, what you want to do is get into a spot where you're using the things God has gifted you to do and surround yourself with people you genuinely like seeing. That's important. Then you have to understand that life is difficult, because if you don't understand life is difficult, the first time you have a setback or there's some dissatisfaction with a job, you begin to think something is wrong. If, on the other hand, you just go, "Hey, life is difficult; that's normal," then you don't get unsettled when things aren't working out exactly the way you want them to.

Caitlin: We've talked about this before, John. I'm the same way. I've never had a five-year plan for my life. I've always just gone, "Hey, what does God have for me in the next season of my life?" There's a lot of freedom in that. You don't have to put pressure on yourself to know where you're going to be in five years to make all of these things line up to make sure you're knocking them down in a row. You can take a minute to breathe.

I think some people do get calls on their life, and they have a vision of… I know I'm not going to be a doctor in five years, that's for sure, but some people have that. You can also give yourself some room to exhale, to go, "What would God have for me? I want to be faithful with what opportunities he's bringing to me today for this next season."

Kylen: You both alluded to "I want to excel at what's revealed." Like, where God has me today is where God wants me today. It matters less what I do and matters more how I do it. People are really familiar with the idea of someone being called to ministry. Is it possible to be called to a career, to a specific job, and how do you make sense of that? What would y'all say to that?

John: I would say… Does that happen? Yes. But I think a much more likely path is that it is a process of investigation. I think in your 20s, one of your main goals is to try to figure out "What am I good at and how can I deploy that?" When you think about work, you want to go to a place where you add value. That's much easier to do if you are naturally good at it.

Secondly, you want to go to a place where you can impact people. At the end of the day, it's all about relationships. Then the third thing you want to do as you're thinking about that kind of stuff is ask, "How am I developing my gifts today so I can be even more valuable tomorrow? What am I doing to develop myself?" So, that's how I think about it. If I'm doing those three things, then I'm moving in the right direction.

Kylen: That's awesome. I tell people all the time, "Your 20s are for learning." Everybody is expecting to arrive in their 20s, and it's just not the way it works.

Caitlin: I talk to so many young adults right out of college who genuinely don't know what they're good at. That's okay. That's an okay place to be to not know exactly what your gift sets are. There are a ton of assessments you can take to help you figure that out, but honestly, that's why it can be useful doing jobs you don't like, because you learn that you are not good at things, and that's just as valuable.

Also give yourself a little bit of grace if you don't quite know what you're good at. Just keep going and trying and asking for different types of projects on the work you're on. Try to flex some new muscles. If you fail at it, maybe go in a different direction. Give yourself a little bit of grace.

Kylen: So, how do we learn what we're good at? How do we discern what our God-given gifting is?

Caitlin: I think about it in two categories. I think about drains and gains. What are some of the tasks that, when I'm doing them, give me energy? Like, if you hang around me, my favorite place in the entire world to be is at a whiteboard. My comfort animal is a whiteboard. I love any task… It gives me energy. I get a weird little buzz when I'm whiteboarding or problem-solving or that sort of thing. If you put me in front of an Excel document, my soul dies.

Kylen: Some of you are like, "Amen. Preach."

Caitlin: Yes, the lights go out. I think having a sense for what is naturally giving you energy when you're doing those tasks and what seems to be draining energy from you… Sometimes you still have to do those tasks, because sometimes being faithful means… I still have to do Excel. I still have to do my budget every single year.

You have to do some of those, but where are you naturally gaining energy and getting energy drained from you? Then, honestly, ask people around you. Your parents might have a good sense of what you're good at and what you're not good at. Ask trusted people around you, "Where do I seem to excel? Where do I not seem to naturally be as skilled?"

John: Yeah, I think feedback is great, because sometimes it's hard to see in yourself. What I would say is it's not always obvious, so you have to try a lot of things. It's practice where you begin to find that groove. You just need to be patient with yourself. If you don't know, that's okay. I was 35 years old before I began to figure out what I was really good at.

Kylen: There are two things I always point people toward. John, you just took one and, Caitlin, you took the other.

Caitlin: We didn't even plan it.

Kylen: But I'll put it in alliteration for you. It's feedback from others and fruitfulness in my labor. That's how you discern if you're gifted from the Lord for a specific task. The apostle Paul, when he was appointing Timothy to the work of pastoring the church of Ephesus… They laid hands upon Timothy. They affirmed him that he was gifted for the work of pastoring there. There was feedback, good feedback that "You're gifted for this."

We've all watched American Idol, and we've seen people betrayed by a lack of honest feedback. "That's not your gifting. Don't go on the show. Don't sing in front of those judges." Some of you need some honest feedback in your life. You need people to help you learn "What am I actually gifted and good for?"

Also, you need to discern "Where's the fruit in my life?" If God has given me a gift for it… The nature of God is that the things he applies his hands to burst in life. So, as you apply your hands through God's gifted provision, they'll burst forth in life as well. They will do so for his glory and for the good of other people.

Now let's turn a corner, because you both have kind of spoken to this, which I think is important. How do we know when it's time to search for another job? I think there's something good y'all have pushed on, and it may be worth pushing a little bit more. Hey, just because it's hard doesn't mean you get out. So, I want us to speak to that, but at the same time, we do need to be discerning of when it's time to move and transition into a new job or a new career or something along those lines. What would y'all say to that?

Caitlin: I could speak to the pushing through. For me, impact has come to me through longevity. When somebody comes onto my team… It was the same for me in the marketplace as it is in ministry. We give them the same speech on day one. "You are not going to know how to do your job for a solid year." It takes a solid year to understand how to do a job.

For me, my pattern in both places has been it takes a year for me to learn how to do a job, it takes another year for me to get semi-good at it, and then the third year is where it gets really fun because I've built up the relational and professional equity where I can start to make an impact on the organization. So, there is something to be said for longevity.

When I worked in advertising, it was pretty known that the quickest way to get a pay bump was to jump agencies every 18 months. That could make sense, and there are times when you would want to job hop like that if you have bad workplaces or things like that, but it got really good at year three, and that's when I started to make an impact. I started to find even more purpose in my work because I was seeing the fruit of that. So, there is something to be said for longevity.

John: I think about it a lot like I think about dating. Taking a job is not like getting married. You are not stuck there for the rest of your life. On the other hand, taking a job is not like a first date. Somewhere between "I'm going to switch jobs every three months" and "I'm never switching jobs" is probably the right path.

I've been in six different companies over the course of my career. One of the things is there are a lot of times I've been in jobs where I'm frustrated or where I feel like it's painful in certain parts of my job, and as a general rule, for me, when I'm thinking about taking another job, what I want to do is… You don't want to move away from things; you want to move toward things.

So, if you are in a job that is frustrating, the wrong thing to do is leave a job because it's frustrating. The right thing to do is to begin to get your antennae up, see if the frustration is lasting, and think about, "What can I move toward?" You move toward things, not away from things. So, "What have I learned here, and now, knowing that, what do I want to move toward next?"

Kylen: What about if it's a toxic or abusive work environment?

Caitlin: Well, then you start to think about you're starting to pay a cost. I think that's where, especially as Christ followers, your faith becomes really important for how you work through that level of conflict. If you're going to leave something like that, my charge to you would be to think about how you can leave well. How can you leave honestly? How can you leave with your integrity intact, not having gossiped or burned the place down on your way out? What does that look like? So, I do think that could be a reason to leave. My charge to you in that would be…How do you leave well?

Kylen: That's really good. "Toxic work environment" is thrown around a lot in our generation, and what we need to do is to qualify what we mean by toxic. Just because it's difficult, just because it's hard, just because it's uncomfortable doesn't necessarily equate with toxicity. Think about it like this. A toxic work environment will feel something like a toxic physical environment. What would be true of a toxic physical environment? It would promote danger to your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Recently, I was out walking. There's a trail that goes behind where Brooke and I live, and there was an armadillo rummaging in the brush right off to the side of the path. That's a really safe environment for that guy to be in. What's not a safe environment for him to be in and is extremely toxic to his survival is the road. That would not be a good place for him to be. Why? Because he is in danger. It is a deadly place for him to be.

If you find that your physical or emotional well-being is taking shots, the first thing you must do is to consider counsel. There is safety in a multitude of counsel. You talk to people and evaluate your state of affairs, but then you also reckon with the reality that you don't just pull the rip cord and eject out of that situation.

You be prayerful. You consider, "Is God calling me to leave?" First Peter 2:18-19 says, "Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly." And he gives the reason for it.

Peter says in verse 21, "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly." What you see there is Jesus was willing to be persevering in the face of injustice, and he finished really well, to Caitlin's point.

John: Let me address work-life balance. That seems to be a huge topic these days. I think when you are in your 20s, that's where you're figuring out what you're good at and becoming highly competent at your job. If you want to be great at work, you can't be great at a dozen things. You can be great at a couple. So, one of the decisions each of us has to make is "What are those things I want to be great at? I'm going to prioritize that."

For me, for much of my work career, it was my walk with Jesus (that was first), second was being a husband and father, and the third was being very good at what I worked at. So, if it touched one of those things, it was priority A. Everything else was optional. What that meant was… You know, I'm not a single-digit handicapper at golf. I'm not a nationally ranked pickleball player. There are a lot of things I'm not, because one of the ways to be good at something is to do less of other things. Being great at it is taking stuff off the plate.

Now, having said that, what I would say is… Look. Anybody in a job can sprint 100 yards. No one can sprint 60 miles. There are jobs where you're asked to sprint 100 yards or 200 yards. That's okay. There are other jobs where you're sprinting 60 miles. I had a job one time where over a three-month period, on Mondays and Tuesdays I was in London, England; on Wednesdays and Thursdays I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and on Fridays… I was in charge of the recruiting for the consulting company I was at, so I was all over the business schools in the country.

Now that's something you can do for a little while. That is not a sustainable life. So, there was a point at which it was like, "Look. What's very clear to me is it is making demands that are not how I want to live the rest of my life." So, when we got pregnant with our second child, I was like, "Okay. In eight months I'm going to be doing something else, because I just can't sprint like that."

Kylen: Okay. But, John, I have goals. I have ambitions. I have certain marks I need to hit. I have a difference I want to make in the world. I have to leave an impact with this short life I have. What does it look like to trust the Lord while still being ambitious in my career?

Caitlin: I think ambition in and of itself is not a bad thing. When you make ambition your identity, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. From my perspective, my story is I made ambition my idol in my 20s. "Advertising girl" was my whole personality, and it was not a good look. I was one of those people who did self-imposed 80- to 90-hour workweeks, and everything about me was my job. I placed my entire identity in my achievement and my performance.

The issue is that is a moving target, and that target never stops moving. For me, I chased that and chased it and chased it, and the cost was that my health eventually gave out. I had a two-year-long health battle because I had worked myself so hard. I had to rebuild not just my body but my identity. I'm so grateful for the gospel that says we don't have to earn anything. He earned it all for us. I was an earner and not used to that message.

So, I would say ambition in and of itself is not a bad thing. I mean, Proverbs is filled with Scripture about diligence, and we think excellence honors God and inspires men. So, I would say there's nothing wrong with ambition, but if ambition is your idol, if it is your only motivation, you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. It makes a really bad master.

John: Yeah, or if your value comes from what you do. I've lived around the US in a lot of different cities, and different cities value different things. When I lived in Washington, DC, the very first question people wanted to ask you was, "Who do you work for?" because that is a city that is all about the power. It's like, "Do you work for somebody who's somebody?"

Then I lived in Boston, and in Boston they care a lot about where you went to school. Boston has more schools per capita than anywhere in the US, and that's how they're deciding the pecking order. Then I lived in Los Angeles. What do you think Los Angeles values? It's how you look and what you drive. What I would say to you is Dallas is more like Los Angeles than any city I've ever lived in.

So, when you step back, you have to say, "Where am I getting my value?" If you're trying to get your value from work, that is not a stable place. We want to get our value from the fact that God loves us, is for us, and is with us. If you don't get your value from there, you're setting yourself up for a big fall.

Kylen: So, is it wrong to pursue riches and fame and impact and influence in the world? Are those wrong things to pursue?

Caitlin: I would say your gifts are from God for God. So, my question is…Why are you pursuing those? Is it for your glory or is it for God's glory? You are made with a purpose, and that purpose is not to bring yourself glory; it's to bring God glory. So I would have a lot of questions about your motivation. I don't think it's wrong to want to make an impact, but why do you want to make an impact? Do you want it to bring you glory or God?

John: Jesus is very clear in the book of Matthew. He says, "Do not store up for yourselves temporary treasures where moth and rust destroy and thieves can break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven." That's the treasure we're trying to build up, because that's the only thing that's going to last. So you want to think long term. You want to invest in long-term things. The one thing that's long term is your relationship with Jesus and doing eternal things.

Kylen: First Timothy 6:9 says, "But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation…" The operative word there is desire. "…into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction." Then y'all know this famously: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils."

See, it's not that money or wealth or influence or difference-making or whatever it is… It's not that those things are inherently wrong. They are morally neutral. I think what Caitlin and John are saying is your love is not intended for those things. Your love is intended for God and God alone. His love has been lavished upon you, and in response to a love embrace becomes a love that we return to God and extend to other people.

Now, God may give you wealth. He may give you fame. He may give you influence. Truthfully, believers are the best to steward those resources, because God doesn't give to you; he gives through you. He's not impacting by you; he's impacting through you. This is the way God works. He works through his people, and it's a delight for him to partner with those who are subject to him first and foremost. One thing in the vein of ambition that I think is worth talking about in this moment is a lot of people will fall prey to, Caitlin, your story of workaholism.

Caitlin: I think it's glamorized in America.

Kylen: It totally is. Amongst young adults, hustle culture is a thing. So, what does it look like for us to both hustle on the job while being healthy in life?

Caitlin: My first boss when I worked in advertising and was in that season I described to you of working 80 to 90… A lot of it was self-imposed because my entire identity was on my performance. He said to me something I'll never forget. He said, "Caitlin, there is a cost to working as hard as you do, and the problem is you won't know what the cost is until you've already paid it."

For me, it was my health, but for others, it could be community. It could be your spiritual life. It could be friendships. So, my question, especially if you're caught up in the hustle culture, is…Are you paying attention to what it's costing you, not just what you're getting out of it, and is it worth the cost?

Then, on a really practical side, God has given you a body to steward, and it's very important to steward your body. I mean, to pay attention to your health and the health of your relationships emotionally, spiritually, and physically in the midst of your job. When you start to get really off balance, something is wrong. So, if you can orient yourself to your purpose in the Lord, often those things kind of right themselves. But it is so important to pay attention to your physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

Kylen: That's great. John, would you add anything to that?

John: Yeah, I would say a couple of things. First, it's your job to keep yourself healthy. In general, bosses do not do a good job of checking out on your health. Caitlin's boss was an exception. Most of them are happy if you want to stay later and do more stuff. What I would say is when you are looking at a job, the boss sets the tone for the culture, and that's how long you work, what kinds of values you pursue, whether it's a competitive environment or a collaborative one.

That's who's going to set the pace, so, if you're thinking about a job, that's who you want to look at to decide, "Is that going to be a good fit in that culture?" You're looking for someone who's going to value that and is not just looking to churn you up and spit you out.

Kylen: How do we know when too much is being asked of us on the job?

John: Here's what I would say. You know it at the extremes. Again, sprinting for 100 yards… Anybody can do that, and there are times in all of our jobs when we're asked to stay late or there's an urgent project that needs to get done. The challenge is when that moves from being the exception to the norm, because now you're trying to sprint 6 miles or 60 miles, and nobody can do that. It's okay to sprint, but you want to have this, not this red line at the top.

Caitlin: That's where knowing yourself is really important, knowing if you are prone to overwork or if you're prone to underwork. You owe it to yourself to take an honest assessment of where you fall on that scale and let others into that. They're both just as damaging, to underwork or to overwork. So, I would encourage you to take an honest assessment of yourself and let your community into knowing, "Hey, this is my ditch. My ditch is to overwork."

In that scenario, you might want to have people lean into the pride you might be getting from that overworking. If it's underworking, you might want to take assessment to see if entitlement has crept into your heart somewhere, that you feel like you're entitled to take a two-hour lunch break because you're working remotely today and nobody will notice. You owe it to yourself now to take an honest assessment and invite others into helping you maintain that balance.

Kylen: That's really good. One of my favorite verses (which you may think is funny, but it's from the Bible) is Proverbs 6. It says, "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." What's the author saying in that verse? Consider the ant who's productive. The ant knows when to work and when to rest. That is such an important concept for us to grasp, because we tend to go one way or the other. We'll burn the candle at both ends or we won't light the candle at all.

Yet what you see is God has set a precedent for us. He worked for six days. He accomplished a lot in six days. He was maximally productive, and then he rested on the seventh. I think a lot of us will say, "God worked, so I'm going to work; I'm going to put it out," yet you probably need to take some time and rest. You probably need to take a day, and you need to rest, you need to reflect, and you need to do something recreationally.

Others of us… I've seen this within the church over the last couple of years. We have idolized this idea of sabbath. We've looked at it and said, "Man, I must have rest in my life, so I'm going to really pull things back." It's like, well, God took a day to do it, so let's not take this thing farther than it should. Let's be well balanced as we consider working and resting.

We're coming to the end of our time, so I want to turn. One thing we know… We unpacked this two weeks ago. We talked about when we consider work on the job and God's purpose for it, so often we're prone to think, "I'm supposed to disciple the people who are around me. I'm supposed to invest and share the gospel with my coworkers." That's a big part of it. The other part of it, though, is what Genesis 2:15 says.

We're supposed to have dominion and work the earth. We're supposed to take what's true of the garden and make it true of the rest of the world. We spent a lot of time talking about that. But it is still true that there is a witnessing component to being on the job. So, I'm just going to ask the simplest of questions here, and I'd love for y'all to speak to it. What does it look like to represent Jesus on the job? As you look back at your corporate experience, how did y'all do it in those environments?

Caitlin: For me, it was a lot more about the small moments than the big moments. You think of a time where you shared the gospel or you said no to when your boss was asking you to do something immoral. Those are important, big, dramatic moments of sharing the gospel. Absolutely important. But the little moments… I think the concept of being set apart (Colossians 3:12), that you're God's chosen people, set apart and sanctified for his purpose…

How can you be set apart in small things? Things like your tone when you communicate. Are you being passive-aggressive? Gossip. In the workplace a lot of times we say, "I just need to vent about my boss." No, that's gossip. So being set apart there. Are you taking part in a culture of crude joking, of drinking?

How can you be set apart in those? Then take an opportunity when people ask you why you don't partake or why you're set apart to relate it back to your faith. So, for me, it has often been about the small things. When people ask me why I'm not excessively drinking at happy hour… "It's because I'm a person of faith. Can I tell you about that?" Capitalize on those small moments.

John: The great thing about faith and work is you get to see most of those people consistently, so it's not one conversation. It's more about a lifestyle. What I've learned is, first, you want to be authentic about your faith. Just be authentic about it. When people know that about you and you're trying to live it out, there will be a respect that comes from that. So that's part of it.

Secondly, you want to share what God is doing in your life, because it's your story. "Hey, let me tell you what God is doing in my life." That is a way of pulling them in so they can be a witness of how God is at work in you. Then the third thing is a lot of times when we share the gospel with somebody they'll say something like, "Oh, that's really interesting. I'm really glad that works for you." That's not the end of the process; that's the start of the process.

Your job once you have that conversation is to love that person in such a way that when something goes wrong in their life, you're the very first person they call. That just means you love them, you care about them, and you encourage them. Look. Life is difficult. Sooner or later, for all of us, things go wrong and people begin to question. You want them to call you, because that's the path into a life of faith.

Kylen: I had a professional mentor tell me one time that on the job you bless people as far as they will let you bless them, because at some point they are going to come looking for your blessing. There is something deeply infectious about the gospel, the way it impacts the lives of God's people. It leads us to be kind when other people are not kind. It leads us to work hard when everyone else is phoning it in. It leads us to be patient when no one else has patience for that person or that situation.

It causes us to speak words of wisdom whenever a problem arises and no one else has a solution. The impact of walking with God will make you a better employee. Here's the thing. People love to work alongside, advance, and promote good employees, but that's not why we do it. We do it because we have a Savior who has gone above and beyond. He has worked to a great degree to satisfy that which we could not satisfy ourselves. John, Caitlin, thank you so much. Would y'all do a great job of helping me thank John and Caitlin? Thank y'all so much.

Over the course of this evening, we took the questions you asked and boiled them down to three different categories. The categories they boiled down to were purpose, balance, and witness on the job. Those are the broad strokes of everything y'all asked. We didn't get to every single question, but that's really at the heart of you and the people sitting alongside of you.

They're the questions of "What does it look like for me to have purpose on the job? How do I find balance between working really well while also still being healthy, not succumbing to something toxic or difficult or dangerous? And how is it that I can witness and be faithful to the faith that I carry, that I claim? I stake my eternity on Jesus, so how then do I stake my job on him as well?" These are the questions y'all have been asking.

I will end our time by reminding you your purpose at work is secured and solidified when you consider Christ's purpose in life. His purpose was to seek you out when you were unworthy of being sought. He was willing to go the distance to get to you when everything around him said, "It's not worth it. They're not worth it." His purpose was even still "I want them to be with me where I am."

As you think about balance, Jesus endured the most toxic of environments. He stepped into a world that was not habitable for a perfect, loving God, yet he in his perfection came to a people who were totally imperfect that he might restore to you a balanced relationship with God himself. How did he do it? He did it by embracing all of our imperfection. He lived the life we couldn't. You could not be perfect, so he came and was perfect in your place.

He absorbed the full weight of your consequence, your sin, in dying the death you deserved upon the cross, and then he rose forth from the grave, and he witnesses to the watching world the same way you should witness at your watching work. He is alive. He didn't just die and stay dead; he rose forth from the grave.

He has made not just eternity out there forever and in the future available to any who would place their faith in God but purpose and relationship and meaning. It's available right here, right now, even this evening, if only you would place your faith in him. Do you know him? Before you can work well, you have to work things out with him. He has come that you might work those things through tonight. Let me pray for us.

God, we love you. We're so grateful for an evening where we can just take the truth of your Word and apply it right to our lives. Every person in here is wrapped up in a work situation, yet, God, though this is true for all of us, I know there's a broad spectrum of circumstance in here. Some of us love our job and others of us hate our job. Some of us are stuck in the mundanity of our career and others of us have deep meaning in the things we do.

There is a broad array of experience here in this room, yet, God, you have come to declare, "There is purpose in what you do. I've come to give you balance while you work there, and I've also called you to be a witness to save the world the same way I have saved you." God, would you work amongst my friends here? Would you lead us to know you more, and would we make a difference in our workplaces for your glory and the good of others? It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.