Friday, May 28, 2010

The job

God works in very unexpected ways. My job has been changing for some months, but what it has been moving toward has still been a bit up in the air. Then Monday morning, my boss came to talk to me. I'd had a bit of warning from a co-worker in another department, but nothing concrete and certainly not something I was expecting to hear about anytime soon. Anyway, he essentially told me that he and the sales manager had been talking, and decided that my job needed to be split into two positions.

I do a lot of document support for Sales, even though I'm in Engineering. Originally, my boss thought we'd be able to make my position kind of a company-wide document support position. As things have gone one, he and the head of Sales have realized that Sales needs more direct support and that we needed someone to provide support and oversight to Production. So, long story short (too late), my job needed to be split.

My boss said that they'd like some input from me; they wanted to know which position I thought I'd be best in. It was at that point I texted some of you to ask for wisdom and clarity. After that, I went and talked to the head of Sales and the other guy I'd be working with very closely. As I learned more about what they were envisioning for this position, I began to become very interested in the possibilities it presented. I did pray about it, and sought the advice of my wife, who the decision affected the most.

The end result: I'll be moving to Sales, in a position that I will have a hand in defining. I expect to be doing things that fit well with my talents and the things I like to do. It was also nice to know that my boss will miss having me in his department; I will be "leaving a hole" as he put it. We are just waiting on hiring someone to take over the position I'll be vacating and a couple of other minor things (like sorting out the financial end). Hopefully I'll be transitioned in a couple of weeks, but I'm kind of expecting a month or two.

I'm excited. I'm a little nervous. I'm anticipating growing with a new position in a new department. I'm grateful to God for constantly surprising me. And I'm grateful to each of you who prayed for me in this situation. Woohoo!

Thoughts on the Spirit...

I had the idea for this blog some weeks ago when the Journey began its series on health choices. Shawn delivered his message, and it sparked this blog. I'd intended to write it then, and I may have lost some of the thread, filler, point, or other parts of it, but hopefully nothing important. Shawn, I'm somewhat ashamed to say I really don't remember anything else about that message... eek.

So, in the course of his message, Shawn said something about all of us being connected by the Spirit once we become Christians and receive Him into our hearts. That short statement sparked this train of thought. If anything, I'd always visualized the indwelling of the Spirit as a... shadow? color? that fills the heart of each person. As a small, individual thing that we each have within us.

While listening to Shawn, I suddenly, and for the first time, had this completely different vision. I saw the Spirit as this large cloud. Inside this cloud (overlaid on it, if you will) moves each of us who has the Spirit within. This cloud not only connects each of us, it is larger than all of us, let alone any of us. It made me think; as Christians, our actions and attitudes have an effect beyond just ourselves and those immediately connected to us (Shawn may also have made this point). When we say or do something, positive or negative, it can, and often does, affect the larger body of Christ, whether through doing actual harm or simply affecting the perceptions of non-Christians.

We, as Christians, cannot afford to have the attitude of the rest of the world, the "ME FIRST!!" that is the mantra of most. "Me first" results in a thinning of the Spirit, a dilution of His power in the world. Not that we humans make God less powerful; that cannot be done. No, since He chooses to act through people in most cases, we dilute His power in the world by reducing the effectiveness of the body as a whole.

Paul says there is one Body, and we are all members. I'd never thought of how that should affect us. Think of a human body. If one cell goes bad, and affects other cells around it, making them go bad, and they affect others, making them go bad, we have a name for that. It's the most basic, simple definition of cancer. Even skin cancer can have an adverse effect on the body as a whole if left untreated. Similarly, as I've always envisioned each of us as cells in the Body (as opposed to things like fingers, feet, etc), if one of us is simply acting like the world, or worse, it spreads like cancer in a human body. In extreme cases, the tumor must be removed. The same is true in Christianity... to a degree. This is where the analogy breaks down; "cancer" in the Body of Christ can often be healed well before it reaches the point where it needs to be removed, which is the opposite of common medical practice.

So, since we are all connected to something (Something) larger than ourselves, we need to consider that before we act and speak. What does all this mean? Pretty much that. Christians can't be "me firsters". It's not the right way to do things.